“No. It would only make me feel bad.”
“I want you to feel bad.”
She smiled, rather sadly. “You’ll always have some woman crazy about you. I mustn’t let it bother me.”
Her smile and her calmness enraged him. “Goddamn it, I’ll make it bother you.” He put his hands on her throat. It was warm and vulnerable, and the pulse beat against his thumbs like tiny hearts.
His hands dropped abruptly. “I used to have a baby duck when I was a kid,” he said. “Stuffed, of course. It always used to bother me.” He gave a little laugh. “Your neck reminded me of it, it’s so soft.”
It was like that every day. He’d start out feeling good about her, and then the questions would start and the resentment and finally the violence that ended in love-making. Confused, unreal, unreasonable days, with Charles in the background, a silent, motionless shadow, but one that might start moving toward them at any hour. She said she’d heard nothing from him, she didn’t know when he was coming back or what he would do when he came back.
Toward the end of the week he went over to the house for lunch. They all acted surprised and pleased to see him.
“Welcome, stranger,” Lily said.
“What you been living on?” Mrs. Putnam said. “Air?”
“I’ve been going out for meals,” he lied.
The two women believed him. “My cooking’s not good enough for you, eh?” Mrs. Putnam said.
“Too good. I might get fat.”
Yes, both the women were innocent, he didn’t have to worry about them. It was Brown who had to be convinced.
“You don’t look so good,” Brown said. “You look pooped out.”
“I am.” Let Brown make something of that if he liked.
Brown liked. “Maybe you’ve been staying up too late nights, eh? I see your light on sometimes three, four o’clock in the morning.”
“I have insomnia. I get up and read now and then.”
“I used to have that kind of insomnia myself,” Brown said solemnly. “It hasn’t bothered me for quite a few years.”
Steve raised his eyebrows politely. “Is that so?”
“Not since I took up philosophy, in fact. Philosophy is a substitute for a number of things.”
“I’ll have to try it.”
“Brown’s an old windbag,” Mrs. Putnam stated. “He don’t know anything about philosophy. He just makes things up as he goes along.”
“Women don’t understand these matters,” Brown said with a wink at Steve.
“Oh, don’t we?”
“Women are not stupid, you understand. No, I’d be the last man on earth to claim that women are stupid. They are simply reluctant to learn.”
Mrs. Putnam’s feelings were hurt. She didn’t offer anyone a second helping and she sipped her tea in silence as thick as dough.
Steve changed the subject. “Has anyone heard when Mr. Pearson’s coming back?”
“Not exactly,” Brown said, with a wouldn’t-you-like-to-know grin. “I just heard he was getting along fine, the country air is doing him good.”
“It’s getting away from her that’s doing him the good,” Lily said.
“Don’t gossip,” Mrs. Putnam warned her.
“That isn’t gossip, it’s . . .”
“It is so. It’s biting the hand that feeds you.”
“She don’t feed me, he does.”
Steve lit a cigarette, feeling suddenly a little weak and sick. He wasn’t used to full meals anymore, that was it. Or maybe it was the reference to Martha and the malice in Lily’s voice and the talk about biting hands. Charles had bitten Martha’s hand, but no one mentioned that. Whatever was said was in Charles’s favor. He had no faults, he was the god of the backstairs.
“Nobody seems to like Mrs. Pearson very much,” Steve said.
The women exchanged glances.
“I do,” Brown said unexpectedly. “I didn’t used to but I do now. She’s got a lot of guts. I’m not saying anything against Mr. Pearson; he’s a good guy. But . . .” He looked sharply at Lily, defying her to interrupt. “. . . he’s not easy to live with. For the people who work for him, sure. But not for a wife.”
He felt intensely grateful to Brown for defending her. He wanted to shake hands with him and congratulate him on his perspicacity and have him over for a drink.
“I admit she’s improved,” Mrs. Putnam said. “The trouble is, she hasn’t got enough to do. She should have a couple of kids or some dogs.”
“Or a lover,” Brown said.
Mrs. Putnam told him he had a dirty, dirty mind and there wasn’t a moral bone in his body, and ten chances to one, he was a Communist, not a philosopher at all, just plain Communist.
In the midst of the argument that followed, Steve got up and went outside.
The air was still, the noon sun hot on his face. He looked up at it, squinting, a little surprised to find that it was still there though he hadn’t noticed it for a long time. He hadn’t been noticing anything, the day of the week or the weather, but now everything struck him at once. It was Saturday, and the end of spring. The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.
I’ll get Martha, he thought. We’ll go for a walk in the woods and lie in the sun and I’ll pick some flowers for her hair. Trilliums or violets.
No, it’s too late for trilliums or violets.
Mushrooms, then. We can gather mushrooms and bring them home and I’ll cook them for her.
You’d both croak, buddy. You don’t know a mushroom from a toadstool.
We can lie in the sun, anyway.
If it doesn’t rain.
I’ll protect her from the rain. I’ll give her my coat and my shirt, and I’ll . . .
Give her your pants, too.
He began to move slowly toward the garage. It was no use, no use trying to pretend they were an ordinary couple in love, or that they could do ordinary things like lie in the sun. The sun had nothing to do with them. Their lying was done at night. They met like thieves in the dark, they talked in whispers like murderers, they fled before the dawn like ghosts.
The smell of lilacs soured, the budding trees were an insult. Deliberately, with every step he took, he dug his heels into the ground, leaving behind him the scars of his feet, a trail of bruised grass.
As soon as she came that night, he told her about the trilliums, laughing to show her how funny it was.
“Trilliums,” he said. “Can you beat it?”
She put her head against his shoulder so that every time she blinked, her eyelashes brushed his neck like feathers.
“I like flowers,” she said seriously. “The woods, too.”
“I don’t think you have a sense of humor, my darling.”
“I haven’t.” He felt her frown against his neck. “I would like to have. Charles always thought I was funny when I didn’t think I was.”
“Good old Charles. I haven’t thought of him for all of three minutes, so you have to bring him up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right.” He waved a greeting into the air. “Why, hello, Charley! Come on in. Glad to have you with us. Sit right here on my lap.”
She raised her head so she could look into his face.
“Now was that funny?” she asked. “I mean it. Was it?”
“Moderately.”
“Oh.”
“Not my best effort, though. I do better in blackface.”
“You sound very bitter tonight,” she said. “Is anything the matter?”
“What a question!”
“I’d like to know. I thought you were . . . I want you to be as happy as I am.”
“Are you happy?”
“Very.”
“You don’t mind being furt
ive, skulking around in the dark to meet me?”
“I’m not furtive,” she said clearly. “I don’t feel that way.”
“What excuses do you give your mother or Laura for going out every night?”
“None. I just walk out.”
“Leave them wondering.”
“If they want to wonder, I can’t stop them.”
“You can’t stop Brown, either.”
She smiled slightly. “Oh, I haven’t tried to fool Brown. I knew I couldn’t. He may write and tell Charles, of course, but I don’t think he will. I think in his queer way Brown wants everybody to be quite happy, even me.”
“The legal profession has a fancy name for what we’re doing—adultery. You are an adulterer, my darling. A happy adulterer.”
She didn’t smile. “That’s right.”
“You don’t give a damn what people think.”
“No.”
“And a couple of weeks ago you were so respectable, you even wore a hat and gloves when you took a bath. The change makes sense, I suppose, but how or why . . .”
“I feel more respectable now,” she said. “I have you back.”
“And I’ve made an honest woman of you, I suppose?”
“Perhaps you have. That’s how I feel, anyhow.”
That’s how she looked, too. Proud and contented, as if she’d be quite willing to go on like this forever.
Well, I’m not, he thought, I won’t.
“Brown isn’t going to tell Charles,” he said. “You are.”
She was silent.
“You intended to tell him, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“I have.” He tried to sound patient, but there was a rough edge to his voice. “I called you my wife. Do you think I’ve said that to every woman I’ve crawled into bed with the last five years?”
“How many women?” she asked. “Many?”
“Enough.”
“Ten?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
“Twenty? Surely not twenty?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
She averted her head. “I can’t tell Charles because I don’t know where he is.”
“I’ll find him for you. I’ll even escort you there.”
“No. No, I’ll find him. It’s just that—-I don’t know what to say.”
“Ask him for a divorce. If he wants to know why, tell him that, too.” Her shoulders were trembling and he tightened his arm around her. “You’re not scared, are you?”
“No.”
“If you are, I’ll come with you. I’ll be exhibit A.”
“I couldn’t stand that,” she said. “I really couldn’t. You’re so much—sturdier than Charles.”
He didn’t ask her what she meant. He had a feeling that he’d be better off if he didn’t know.
16
She had a confused, endless dream that night, in which she watched a sea monster cruise along the lake shore, holding its head out of the water with contemptuous dignity. It was dusk and she’d broken her glasses; she had to wait and wait until it got close enough for her to see. It was a shock but a relief, too, to see that the monster wore Charles’s head.
“It’s only Charles!” she cried to the people on the shore, with their half-strange, half-familiar faces.
It was getting dark and they all vanished suddenly, burying themselves in the sand and crouching behind rocks.
“Charles, stop a minute! Listen to me! I want a divorce!”
Grey and ponderous as a battleship, the monster moved away into the black water.
She went home. She stepped on some of the people hiding under the sand. She apologized profusely, but they never let on they were there.
Her alarm rang at eight.
She rose hastily, impelled by a sense of urgency whose cause she didn’t recognize. It was as if her muscles knew in advance what her mind would remember later, that there
was something difficult to be done and they must be prepared.
She crossed the room with eager steps and pulled open the drapes, as if she could hardly wait to see this new day. The sun was shining like a congratulation. A swarm of bees did a noisy, dizzy dance for her alone, and the dream drowned of its own weight. The people dug themselves out of the sand, shook themselves and stretched and began to make human sounds.
Her mother coughed, Laura was taking a shower. Brown whistled his way down the stairs, Mrs. Putnam brought the milk in.
She phoned the doctor before she went down for breakfast. When she told him she wanted Charles’s address, he gave it to her without asking any questions or showing any surprise. He seemed to have been waiting, in fact, for her to call and to be acting under Charles’s instructions.
Perhaps Charles has found out already, she thought, and he’s waiting for me. Brown might have written to him or told Forbes. She knew Forbes phoned the house now and then and talked to Brown—there were some collect calls from Green Village on the phone bill. Brown didn’t mention them and she didn’t ask. It was somehow annoying to ask Brown anything. He always answered truthfully and the truth was always blameless. Only his face lied. It invited you to believe in intrigue. His eyes had plots in them, spies and secret formulae lurked in their corners. Behind his smile grew vast scandals and his eyebrows twitched with revolutions. Untraceable poisons rolled on his tongue and his hands fondled a homemade bomb. You felt cheated when he opened his heart to you, and you saw it was as fat, pink and innocent as a baby.
No, Brown hadn’t told, and he wouldn’t.
“Have you got that?” Dr. MacNeil asked.
“Yes, thanks.” She read it off to him as she’d written it. “Turn left at the main intersection of the village, drive two miles, turn right, the third cottage.”
“That’s fine. I think you’ll find him in good spirits.”
“I hope so,” she said, wondering why he should suddenly be so friendly, so anxious for her to see Charles.
“Oh, you will. He’s taking a more reasonable attitude now. He’s had an opportunity to think matters over.”
“What matters?”
“The general situation,” MacNeil said blandly.
She thanked him for the address and hung up.
Neither Laura nor her mother had come down for breakfast yet. Brown was in the dining room setting out halves of grapefruit at each place.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pearson.” His little eyes slid from her face to the grapefruit and back again, as if they were saying, “Guess what’s in the grapefruit this morning. Give up? Curare! I just had a shipment from the chief of an Amazon tribe.”
She smiled involuntarily, and he smiled in return. They seemed to be sharing some huge, inscrutable joke not meant for other people.
“I’m going out to see Mr. Pearson this morning,” she said. “You can call me a cab right after breakfast.”
“Mr. Ferris would be glad to drive you.”
“I don’t want to impose on him.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t look at it like that.”
“I prefer a cab.”
“Certainly, ma’am.” He rubbed the side of his jaw pensively. “Any particular color?”
“Pink,” she said, and bit decisively into a piece of grapefruit.
The cab arrived at nine and Brown escorted her out. She was very surprised when she saw that the cab was pink. Brown waited, with childish glee, for her to remark on it.
“It’s pretty,” she said.
“The only pink cab in town.” He nodded his head mysteriously, implying the rest: a couple of friends of mine who happen to be gnomes painted it up for me in a jiffy.
She was almost ready to believe that he’d said it and that it
was true. The driver looked like a gnome. He wore an oversize pink and grey checked cap under which his sad, delicate little face crouched in hiding from a world which did not understand him. His voice was high and sweet as a choir boy’s, and his hands touched the gears, thin and elegant as spiders.
“A beautiful day,” he said. “A really beautiful day.”
“Yes, isn’t it?”
“This is my very own cab.”
My very own. I painted it with my own tiny hands with a watercolor brush and I drive it up and down the treble clef.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, forcing silence on the gnome and blotting out the beautiful day. Each turn of the wheels brought her closer to Charles, but she could not even conjure up a picture of him or plan a single sentence to say to him. The most she could do was censure herself, and that only in a trite and rather absent way: This is a bad situation and you are a bad woman. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. There will be a terrible scandal, innocent people will suffer, not just you . . .
But I won’t suffer, she thought with amazement, and I don’t think I’m a bad woman. I’m not ashamed of anything except marrying Charles and making a mess of it.
She could view their marriage with detachment now that it would soon be ended. The fault had been mainly hers. She had had something to conceal from Charles, and the very act of concealment had aggravated her sin, the way layers of face powder cover up acne but make it spread and itch. She had married Charles at a time when she was filled with resentment against all men because one man had seduced her (rather easily, she admitted), and then left her.
It was not the loss of her virginity that bothered her so much as the fact that she had lost it for nothing, and in such a sordid, ordinary way. She remembered the squeaking couch in the parlor at home, the careful shifting to avoid the broken spring, and the darkness torn now and then by her father’s gargantuan snores, or her mother calling, “Martha, you better come to bed now. It’s late.”
Her mother always called in the same kind of voice, kindly, but a bit absent-minded. Almost as if she knew what was going on downstairs, Martha thought, but felt she had neither the right nor the strength to interfere. Her parents were similar in their attitudes. They were not morally loose, their lives were blameless and dull; but they had a certain laxity of purpose. There was nothing clean-cut or definite about their thoughts or their plans. They never wanted one thing consistently or badly enough to go after it. Their weak acceptance of whatever came along had puzzled Martha when she was a child and enraged her when she became older. By the time she was fifteen, her life was already in sharp contrast to theirs. She was relentlessly ambitious and puritanical. She moved like a steamroller, in a straight line, crushing everything that was in her way. She harried her mother about her housekeeping and her father about his occasional and harmless drinking bouts. She looked after Laura, she washed and ironed her dresses, and brushed her hair and sent her off to school starched, prim and respectable.
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