Three Women at the Water's Edge

by Nancy Thayer

  Margaret had cried out, helplessly, “Oh!” and hidden her face in her hands. She had become almost faint. She had covered her face with her hands and sat that way for a long time, staring down at her dress until she felt herself calmed by the way her mind began to study the intricate pattern of blue-and-violet paisley meandering about the cloth. When she finally looked up, she had gone blank, she had almost forgotten the crisis at hand. She had to look at Anthony’s serious face for a long moment before speaking.

  “Anthony,” she said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t prepared for this. I need to think about it. I’m immensely complimented, but I don’t know how to respond. In fact, I’m just stunned.”

  Anthony had drawn her to him and kissed her on the mouth, her face, her neck. “Take your time,” he said. “I can understand your surprise. I know how I am, how I act, but I find it so hard to express my feelings. I don’t expect you to answer right away. Please take your time. But please say yes. I did not ask you to marry me frivolously. I love you. I want to marry you. I think we could spend the rest of our lives happily together. And I don’t want to share you with anyone.”

  For there were other men. To Margaret’s amazement, there were other men. Anthony was by far the most handsome, but the two other men she had begun to see with some regularity had other points to commend them. For one, they both had a sense of humor which far excelled Anthony’s, and since Harry had never had much of a sense of humor, this quality had been almost the most attractive one she could find in a man. It gave her pleasure, as much pleasure as sex, to double over with laughter at what John Mallinson said, or to appreciate some witty intellectual remark of Roger Whitehall’s. She found that these men called up new layers of herself just as surely as Anthony did, and she valued these new parts of herself very much indeed. It seemed to her that intelligent lightheartedness was a real gift of God. She wondered why she had somehow never come across it in Liberty: Was it that the humor there was always rather heavy and obvious or simply that no one would have thought to be airily lighthearted with her old self? At any rate, she had never dreamed she could have such easy, pleasurable and almost impersonal relationships with men like these, and it appalled her to think of sacrificing the acquaintance and company of these other men in order to limit herself to Anthony.

  He had finally driven her home, and left her at her door with a kiss that left no doubt as to the seriousness of his intentions. He did love her; she had touched his soul. That was the worst thing of all. She was almost certain that she did not want to touch anyone else’s soul, certainly not now, not for a long while. And assuredly she did not want her own soul touched or meddled with; my God, she was only in the process of discovering her soul, at the age of forty-eight—she wasn’t about to give it over right away to someone else’s keeping. She wasn’t even sure what it was like. For the past three days she had rather barricaded herself in her house, leaving the phone off the hook, or going out all afternoon and evening by herself, to the library, to bookstores, to clever shops which occupied her mind. She had walked and walked inside shopping malls and art galleries, trying to tire herself out so that she would simply not have the energy to deal with the problem. Yesterday afternoon she had sat alone in a small café, drinking cinnamon-flavored coffee and enjoying a cigarette, and she had begun to watch two women of her own age who were having lunch together at a table near hers. The two women had been so involved in each other, heads bent toward each other, talking earnestly, drawing back to eat or laugh, and Margaret felt a glow of satisfaction come over her at the sight. It occurred to her then that the person she liked best in her life at that moment was her own woman friend Miriam, because Miriam gave and needed just the right amount—and she imposed no conditions whatsoever on Margaret’s life. Miriam was tremendously busy with her own life, with her teaching at the university, and with her pleasant marriage with Gordon, and so she had some time for Margaret, and would help her if that was needed, or ask for help, but that sort of request was rare. Margaret spoke to Miriam on the phone almost daily, and they saw each other at least once a week; they shared occasional meals and books and laughter. And that was all. There was a real elegance about the friendship Margaret shared with Miriam; there was a fastidious grace. It was unlike any relationship Margaret had ever had, and she felt she valued it above all others. So Margaret sat impolitely watching the other lunching women, and wondering about the nature of friendships and love, until they finished their meal and rose and left. Then she left, herself, not any the less confused.

  And now here she was, on a rainy morning, alone with herself and her familiar old cat and the sleeping new one. It fascinated her that the stray cat could sleep so soundly in a strange house, that it could be so self-possessed as to enter a new space and give itself over to sleep. Now that it was dry, Margaret could see that it was a large and graceful cat, a really quite beautiful cat, and she even found herself thinking that she would like to keep it. Would she become a cliché of a woman, an old lonely woman living with only cats as company? Why did people deride such women so? She would find it, she thought, a most superior way to live. She could envision a quite lovely life shared only with these quiet, undemanding animals who by their own insolent aloofness would allow her an elegant, companionable privacy.

  But what to do about the people in her life, these people who reached out, and touched her soul, in spite of her attempted withdrawal, and tried to draw her back into a world where people healed and wounded each other? In the past few weeks, Margaret had become unable to watch the television news or to read the front page of the newspaper. It seemed that the world was just too full of tragedy, of need, of sorrow; and that somehow it was all her fault. Children were starving in India and Africa; families in South America had lost their homes to earthquakes and landslides; adolescents were maimed in totally unnecessary car accidents; baby seals and whales were being killed; old people were freezing and living on cat food. The last evening she had watched the news she had finally slammed off the television set in a fury, and paced about her house waving her hands and shouting to herself while Pandora, her old familiar cat, sat cynically watching her from a comfortable nest on the sofa.

  “Well, what am I supposed to do?” she had asked the cat, the pure white, silky, well-fed, and luxurious cat. “What should I do? Should I buy food and mail it to India? Adopt a whale? Adopt an old person? Fly down to Peru with a hammer and some nails and try to build one homeless family a new house? What am I supposed to do? Shall I stand at a curve on Upper Levels Highway with a sign telling drivers to slow down, to drive more carefully? Or station myself at an airport waiting for a crash so I can pull victims from the plane? Give all my money to medical research? Arrive at a hospital and tell them to cut out my eyes to give to some blind child? What shall I do? What would it help the world if I tried?”

  In other words, did she have to fly back and help Daisy with her children?

  Did she have to marry Anthony and be a helpful faculty wife, ministering to students and young professors’ families?

  But what else was she good for? She was intelligent and well read, but she had no degrees. She could do several things very well, but she had developed no marketable skills or talents, and she wasn’t interested, really, in a career. She simply wanted to live out her life by enjoying each day as she chose. The question was, how could she buy her way? Or had she somehow already bought it?

  Margaret lit another cigarette, then put it out because it gave her mouth an unpleasant taste. She looked at her watch: it was eight o’clock. She decided to fix herself some breakfast. She went into her kitchen and became involved for a while in the pleasure of making herself a tray with eggs scrambled with cheese and chives, and an English muffin slathered with butter and honey, and fresh pressed orange juice. She carried the tray back to the living room, intending to eat and read, and as she set the tray on the coffee table, she saw Pandora stroll out of the bedroom to come to a dramatic standstill at the sight of the stray cat sleeping
on the hearth. Pandora’s white fur stood on end and a low nasty growl came roiling out of her throat. This immediately woke the stray cat, who sprang to its feet at once and arched its back. Both cats hissed, then began to do a tense scuttling dance about each other, snarling and hissing as they did. Pandora suddenly reached out one sharp paw to swipe at the stray cat, and the cat leaped back and yowled.

  “Pandora, stop it!” Margaret yelled. She walked over to her cat and stood above her, frowning down. “You stop that right now. This poor cat was freezing out in the rain and I had to take him in. He’s just a temporary guest; he’s not going to give you any trouble. Now you mind your manners and settle down or I’ll put you out in the rain.”

  Pandora eyed Margaret with an almost sneering distaste, then turned her back and slunk off under a chair, to lie and stare out steadily and nastily at the stray cat. The stray cat settled back down on the hearth but this time with an air of wary unease, keeping his eyes open and facing toward Pandora.

  “All right, cats, that’s better,” Margaret said. “You can both just calm down and be civilized.” She sat down and took a bite of her eggs. The food brought her a sense of pleasure and calm and as she looked at the books on the coffee table. She thought she would now like to read them; she would finish her breakfast and take the books back to bed. She took a bite of the crisp English muffin, and then the phone rang. She had to put her food back down in order to go into the kitchen to pick up the phone.

  “Mother?” It was Dale speaking. “Good morning. How are you? Did I wake you?”

  “Why, no, actually,” Margaret said. “A stray cat awoke me about thirty minutes ago and I’ve been watching him spat with Pandora. And I’m fine. But how are you? Why on earth are you calling at this time of day? What time is it in Maine now? Eleven o’clock? Shouldn’t you be teaching? Oh, what’s wrong?”

  Dale laughed. “Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong. I’ve been trying to reach you all week, but either your line’s been busy or you’ve been out. I thought if I called now you surely wouldn’t be gone. Everything’s fine. I just wanted to ask if it would be all right if I flew out to see you this weekend. I have a cold; I can take sick leave and come out on Friday and stay the weekend.”

  “Well…well…well, of course,” Margaret stuttered. “But why? I mean, I would be delighted to see you, darling, but—”

  “Stop worrying, Mother,” Dale said. “I just want to see you and talk with you about some things. Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong. Listen, I’m in the school office right now and I’ve got to get back to my class. But I’ve got a reservation on a United flight that gets into Vancouver at noon. Flight two-nine-six. Okay?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. I’ll meet you at the airport. Oh, this is exciting, Dale.”

  “Good. I’ll see you Friday. Take care, Mom.”

  Margaret hung up the phone and stood still, staring out the kitchen window at the rain, staring hard, as if she could see the answer to her thoughts if she only watched closely enough. Why was Dale coming out? What in the world was going on? And what kind of mother was she to feel so suspicious? Finally she went back out to the living room and sat down. She tasted her eggs again, but they had grown cold, and the honey had seeped into the muffins, giving them a damp and soggy appearance. Across the room, Pandora sat stiffly, watching first the new cat and then Margaret with sulky and accusing eyes.

  “Damn,” Margaret said, then: “Oh, well.” And she picked up three of the new books and went off to her bedroom with them, leaving the muffins and the cats, knowing she would be unable to concentrate on the books or to fall into the oblivion of sleep.

  —

  Friday morning Margaret found herself in front of her mirror in tears. She had put on her loveliest clothes and spent a long time with her makeup, and still she looked wretched. Or thought she did. She supposed that she actually didn’t look much different from the day before, it was just her mood that was making her look this way, just her damned mood that was making her think she looked wretched. Oh, the flesh, the sappy flesh, she was thinking. This morning she hated all her flesh, all its pockets and creases and wrinkles and sags, all its flaws. She felt there was so much unsavoriness about her body. It had been so much easier when she hadn’t had any pretensions to beauty, when she had been able to hide behind her fat and her tiny-curled hair and her shapeless dresses. Now she felt she had proclaimed herself a person who found herself attractive, and therefore she was subject to criticism. She felt old. She placed her hands at the sides of her face and pulled the skin back toward her ears, wondering if she should have her face lifted. So many women were doing it, and they seemed to look and feel better because of it. And she certainly could afford it. She could afford to have everything lifted, everything done. But eventually time would tell, age would show, she would be fifty, and not twenty-four as Dale was. She would be fifty, and then sixty, and then seventy, there was no going back, no evading it: she was going to get old. She didn’t want to look old, she wanted to look young and sexy and admirable. But oh the vanity of it all, the damned vanity.

  She went back into her bedroom and lay down on her bed and shut her eyes. Growing old was not fair. It was not fair that now when she was just discovering herself she was starting to fall apart. Now and then, in rare moments of despair, she sometimes thought she would have done better to stay in Liberty, where she could have grown old and ugly in comfort, eating and eating, growing fatter and fatter, with no one, most of all herself, placing any demands on her appearance. In Liberty she could have easily stayed Mrs. Santa Claus, jolly, plump, and sexless. As it was she had to fight with herself every day not to eat too much food, or any of the wrong foods which would cause her to gain weight, not to drink too much alcohol, which also added weight but, even worse, made her look bloated and saggy the next day; she had to fight to make herself swim and exercise. Most of the time it was worth it—but just now it was not. Just now it all seemed so trivial, so foolish, so almost shameful. Oh, what was it that one person loved about another person? The spirit of course, above all, the spirit of a person was the most important. But there was no getting around the fact that it was the flesh which first attracted people to each other. There was no getting around the fact that Anthony would never have loved Margaret if he had seen her in her Liberty body. And yet—hadn’t that body been a true reflection of her spirit? Hadn’t her spirit changed as much as her body? All right, then, but how was she to face the dilemma of the future, when she felt her spirit would grow more and more attractive, but her body could only age? Or even now, now was the problem, now: how to face Dale at the airport.

  Dale had always been her father’s daughter; Daisy had always been her mother’s daughter. The spring Dale had graduated from college, Margaret and Harry had driven back to Massachusetts for the ceremony, and had stayed for a week in a pleasant hotel near the heart of the small New England town where the college was. And at each social function, at each expensive gay restaurant meal, even as they had walked about the town, looking at the charming pottery and clothing shops, Margaret had been well aware that Dale wouldn’t have cared all that much if Margaret had not been there. In fact Margaret had felt it very clearly that Dale would have liked to be alone with her father. Harry did look so distinguished, did look so much like the sort of person he was: a distinguished, well-respected, handsomely aging, prosperous man, the real man at that time in Dale’s life. Margaret had gone into a beauty shop on the main street of the town one morning to have her hair done, and had felt horribly shy and fat and tasteless as she sat in her polyester print dress having her little curls of hair combed out while all about her, sleek slim women, young and old, had sauntered, bright with fashion. She had come out of the shop, stunned by the daylight, and seen Dale and Harry strolling down the street arm in arm, stopping to chat with friends of Dale’s. How happy Dale had looked standing there with her father, leaning up against him, proudly displaying him; Margaret had wanted to run away. She had felt like a misfit, a damper
on Dale’s days.

  And then, two years later, just last year, when Dale had returned from her European stay, oh, what a distance had been between the two of them. Margaret had fixed Dale an enormous breakfast that morning, and sat down at the kitchen table across from her with a companionable cup of coffee, trying to talk with Dale, trying to get from Dale some real feeling for who she had become, what she had done, how those two years away had changed her. For once she had been totally interested in Dale, her younger daughter, totally interested and without anyone else in the way. The night before, Dale’s first night home, Dale had spent most of the time talking with Harry, telling him about castles or museums, and asking about all his patients and his work. Margaret had known what Dale had wanted—that private time with her father—and had kept as unobtrusively out of the way as possible, doing the dishes, refusing Dale’s offer to help, then making a lemon meringue pie for the next day. She had wished it had been Daisy who had been home, because then Daisy and Harry would have sat in the kitchen with her, and Danny and Jenny would have played on the floor with measuring spoons and cups and plastic bowls, and it would have been so comfortable. But Daisy was at her own home then, in Milwaukee, with her husband and children, and Margaret had wanted to turn her full attention toward Dale. She had wanted to get to know Dale, this second daughter of hers. She knew she had always favored Daisy, as Harry had favored Dale; she could call up times in her memory when she had probably unjustly sided with Daisy. There had been a time, a time like many, but this particularly was clear in Margaret’s thoughts, when Margaret had at least in her own feelings and actions been unfair to Dale. It was a summer afternoon when she was bringing the girls home from swimming, and Daisy, in a passion about something or other, had slammed the car door shut on Dale’s foot and severed part of her little toe. Dale had screamed with pain; she had been in pain and frightened, but Margaret’s sympathy had gone out first to Daisy, who had stood stricken and sickly pale by the car, too horrified even to cry at what she had just done. “It’s okay, it’s okay, Daisy, you didn’t mean to, we can fix it, Dale will be okay,” Margaret had said to her oldest daughter, and had rushed from the car to wrap Daisy in a consoling hug first, before taking care of Dale. That whole day she had been more worried about Daisy than Dale, because Dale had gone to her father and had the toe sewed back on and treated and bandaged and then had lounged about on the porch or in front of the television while Daisy brought her sister penitential gifts of fruit or candy or comic books. Harry and all the neighbors and all the girls’ friends had made such a fuss over Dale; Harry had soundly scolded Daisy for her carelessness; and for days Daisy had been pale with contrition. But that had not been fair, Margaret had felt: Daisy hadn’t meant to hurt Dale, it had been simply a stupid accident, simply a matter of Dale sticking her foot out at the wrong moment. Her heart had gone out to Daisy. Well, and perhaps not enough to Dale. Perhaps even then Margaret had been growing tired of nurturing and tending and sympathizing with victims. And perhaps her heart had never gone out enough to Dale: but then Dale had always had Harry.