by Belva Plain
He lay down on the bed without taking off his overcoat and thought: I’m dying.
“You can’t go on like this,” Claire said. Martin opened his eyes. “I fell asleep. What are you doing here?”
“Enoch called me. He looked in and saw you. He was scared.”
“No need to be. I’m weak from the flu and I fell asleep, that’s all.”
“Dad, you’re not fooling anyone, so don’t waste your breath. Sit up,” she ordered. “Let’s get your coat off. Now lean back.” She moved briskly. “You’re shivering. I’ll get you a brandy.”
He felt, in the face of her authority, like a child. “Claire, Claire, I’m falling apart,” he said suddenly and for the first time was not ashamed.
She took him in her arms. “Dad. Dear, dear. No, we’re not going to let you.”
“There are things you don’t understand.”
“Do you want to tell me about them?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Don’t then, if you think you’ll be sorry afterward. But,” she said steadily, “you really ought to talk to somebody and get it off your mind.”
Off your mind! As if you were excising a tumor! That would be easier. A tumor can at least be seen, not like this amorphous, secret pressure in the head where, so they say, almost any unsuspected thing can lurk: desires to rob a bank, rape a neighbor’s wife or assassinate the president, God only knows what.
He began, “You don’t know why Hazel—”
Something in his daughter’s expression—oh, he had from the beginning been so sensitive to the slightest nuance of her expression—something said to him that she might know.
“I’ve a pretty good idea. She found out about you and Mary.”
Martin sighed. He put his hands on his knees, turned them over to regard the heartline on the palm and the whorls on the fingertips, then back to the cuticle. No pair of hands in the world like any other pair, no life like any other life.
“It was in California. We met a man I’d known during the war.”
Claire said softly, “If I were a man I would fall in love with Mary, too, I think. Maybe you should just have stayed there after the war. Ned thinks you should have.”
“Ned does? He’s very young.”
The room was still. No sound came from the apartment It was as though the household had suspended its life in wait for Martin. And suddenly anxiety came uttering back like bird wings in the air, like those poor, caged creatures he had been looking at that afternoon.
“Ah, Hazel!” he cried. “I destroyed her anyway! Didn’t I?”
“No,” Claire said. “She did it herself. You are the only one who can destroy yourself. Other people can’t, unless you let them.”
“You believe that?”
“I do.”
“I hear your mother talking.”
“Well, she’s got a lot of strength. And Hazel didn’t, no fault of hers, God help her.”
Years ago when he was an intern and that nurse—Nora, was it?—had killed herself, he remembered thinking how he’d hate to be in that man’s shoes.
“You make it all sound very simple,” he said.
“I don’t mean to. Listen to me. Listen. You’ve been stumbling along with a load of guilt enough to break your back. But you were good to Hazel! You gave her good years! She was totally content till the very end.”
“If I could undo it,” Martin began.
“Well, you can’t. You know what your trouble is? You think you ought to be a saint and you’re only a man.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Everything in your life has to be perfect, and it can’t be.”
Martin laughed. It flashed through his mind that he hadn’t laughed in months. “You’ve analyzed me pretty cleverly, I think. I hope you’ll do as well with Ned.”
“Does that mean you’ve decided to approve?”
“No, it just means I’ve decided not to fight it.”
“Because you know you’d lose.”
“Not only that. I want you to be happy, Claire. As long as you’re bent on doing it, I don’t want you to start off with bad feelings, that’s all.”
She gave him a look of purest gratitude. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll bring him here, then.”
“Have you brought him to your mother’s?”
“For a short visit. Naturally, Mother was correct but cold as ice.”
“The pain’s too deep, too old. And Claire, on my part I want to say—”
“You want to say you don’t want to see Ned’s mother. You won’t have to, I promise.”
They sat for a while without speaking.
“I wish it could be different—joyous and warm,” Martin murmured.
“It’s all right, Dad. For me things don’t always have to be perfect.”
He felt something soft and calming in his chest: strength, pouring in some occult way from this child of his back into him. It was a fine tingling, a rising of hope, anticipation. Whatever it was, it was a benison. And just as he had known when he had been falling into sickness, now just as surely he recognized the first faint start of healing.
The door opened and three heads appeared around its edge.
“Come in,” Claire called. “Don’t be afraid. Dad’s feeling much better. He’s going to be all right.”
Chapter 29
The new apartment was complete a month or more before the wedding and Ned had officially moved in. Most of the time, Claire stayed there with him, too. She was perfectly aware that Jessie knew. They simply didn’t talk about it.
With a certain amount of reverse snobbism, or perhaps only to be different from her mother, Claire had always liked to say that she cared not a whit for things. Yet now, because these particular things were really her own, she liked to walk around touching them or just to look at them in the light that poured from the afternoon sky when the curtains were drawn back. Many of these new possessions were actually old: her grandfather’s leather set of Thackeray and Trollope, brought from Europe long before the century had turned and handed over with appropriate ceremony by her father; the blue-and-white quilt made by Grandmother Farrell that Aunt Alice had generously parted with for Claire; a lacquered Chinese chest that Jessie had been saving for a client, but had given to her when she saw that of all the objects in the shop, it was the single one that Claire really wanted.
Then of course there was a bed, the center, the heart of the new home. They had bought it together after days of searching: an outsized Victorian relic, large enough to make babies in blissful comfort and later to nurse them and play with them on winter Sunday mornings. They liked to fantasize.
“We used to think our parents’ bed was a ship or a castle,” Ned had told her. “Those shadowy halls could be a forest or an ocean full of scary things, and we’d run through them as fast as we could and pounce on that safe bed in the lamplight.”
Except for the children, Claire thought, there hadn’t been much joy in that bed. Not much joy anywhere for Mary Fern.
Ned’s key turned in the lock, and he came in looking, now that he had given up the umbrella and the bowler, like any prosperous, young American coming home from work. He hadn’t expected her so early, and she was pleased to surprise him.
She laughed, “You’re the only person whose face wreathes in smiles. I always thought that such a silly description, but you know, your face does wear a smile like a wreath. A conquering hero’s wreath.”
“Idiot,” he said, kissing her.
“I’ve brought stuff to eat, sandwiches from that great deli down the block. And Mother’s cook made a cake. I snitched it because Mother’s up in Vermont and there’s nobody at home to eat it.”
“When you said ‘stuff to eat,’ I thought you meant you’d cooked a dinner.”
“Heavens, no! I can’t cook, Ned. That’s one thing I never fooled you about. But I will learn. As soon as I’ve more time, I’ll really learn.” She had set the table in the kitchenette, and now she put out the f
ood. “Here’s potato salad, here’s cole slaw, a French bread and a beautiful melon.”
“Leave that a minute and sit down. I want to tell you something,” Ned commanded. He sounded so serious that she turned at once from the refrigerator, but his eyes were smiling with excitement.
“There’s another silly expression that fits you. ‘His eyes danced.’ Isn’t that ridiculous? Have you ever seen eyes dance? I never have except for yours. They’re dancing right now.”
He grasped her hand and pulled her down. “Listen. Listen. Anderson called me in today and said we were going to the president’s office. For a minute, I got cold. Jergen never sees anybody. I didn’t think he even knew me except maybe from seeing me in the elevator or the men’s room. No, not even the men’s room—he has his own. But as we were walking down the hall, Anderson told me what it was about. They’re reorganizing the offices in Hong Kong. The operation there has been falling way behind and the top man is due for retirement anyway. So Jergen asked Anderson to make a recommendation, and—and, Claire, I’m it! I’m the one!”
Claire put her sandwich back on the plate. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Me! Us! I’m to be head of the office! We’re going to live in Hong Kong! They know we’re being married and they were very nice about a honeymoon and all that, so we won’t have to be there until September first. Also, of course, they’ll pay for moving our stuff. What do you think of that?” And he sat back with his face wreathed in smiles and his eyes dancing.
She was perfectly sane and she had heard it all correctly. Still, the thing was totally unreal.
“I know it’s a shock. Here we were settled with a fine view of the East River, and instead we’ll be on the other side of the world with a view of the junks in Hong Kong Harbor.”
Claire wet her lips. Then she took a swallow of water. “But aren’t you forgetting something? I’ve got one of the most desirable internships in the world here at Fisk and a Fisk neurological residency next year. So this can’t make any sense to me, Ned.”
“Darling, I know it must be awfully upsetting to you. Anything as totally unexpected and sudden as this—I know.” He put his arms around her, his safe arms. She laid her head on his shoulder. Then she remembered something.
“You talked about writing. You used to dream about being an investigating journalist, probing in hidden places, exposing wrongs, you said.”
“Yes, I know, that was all very fine, but I’ve come up against hard facts and the hard facts are that you have to seize your opportunities. And this is my opportunity. A bird in the hand, as the saying goes. Darling, I’m sorry. So sorry to be confusing things like this for you when you’ve been so efficient, working so hard and still managing to get this apartment together and … and just doing the work of two people. I’m just damned sorry to do this to you.”
“Well then, do you have to?”
“A man wants to get ahead, Claire.” Ned spoke softly. “A man needs to. I want you to depend on me. That’s what being a man is all about.”
She drew away. Depend on him? Yes surely, in a way, but—
“Can’t we just rearrange our thinking and look at this as a great adventure?”
“ ‘Our’ thinking? I’m the one who is being asked to give up—”
Now Ned interrupted, “I’m not asking you to give anything up, Claire. We won’t be there forever, because I most certainly don’t intend to live in the Orient for the rest of my life, and anyway, that’s not what they plan. I’m sure we’ll be transferred. In fact, Anderson said, speaking unofficially, of course, it wouldn’t be more than four or five years.”
“Four or five years!”
“Yes. And you’d still be young enough to begin a residency then. Your father would get one for you. We’d have a lot of money saved up, too,” he said enthusiastically. “There’s extra pay for working overseas, you know.”
He didn’t see that she was devastated. There’d been a photo in the paper that morning of a woman who had come home to find her house burned down. All day that anguished face had kept rising in front of Claire’s eyes. And now her own face must be looking like that … But Ned was sitting there, looking as fresh as he always managed to look after a day’s work, not perceiving her at all.
He reached out to unwrap a sandwich.
“You must be crazy,” she said.
“Crazy?” he repeated mildly. It took a good deal, she knew, to ruffle him, and this steadiness, this calmness in storm, was a quality she had cherished in him. “Crazy?” he said, and this time he sounded hurt. “I thought you’d be thrilled for me. I don’t think you know how unusual this is. I’m the youngest man ever to head a foreign office for the firm, and I’m new on the job to boot.”
“Oh,” she cried, “oh, Ned, of course I know! I’m terribly proud of you.” Actually she hadn’t thought about it until just now. “I do see what a fabulous honor it is, I really do!”
“It’s more than an honor. I’ll be earning thirty-five thousand a year, plus all the extras!”
“It’s wonderful, of course it is! But what about me? I can’t just table my work, can I? I can’t just put it aside for a while and pick it up again sometime later when it’s more convenient, can I?”
“You could.” He spoke gently. “I know it’s not the ideal way, but it’s not impossible, especially in these circumstances.”
Dumbfounded, she made no answer. And he went on, “After all, you’re not a man. You don’t have to get through with it was fast as possible to earn a living.”
“Earn a living!” she cried now. “That’s not what it’s all about for me! I thought you understood me better than that! Medicine is all I ever wanted. Ned! It’s my—my life!”
“I do understand you. You know I do. And yet I thought I was your life. Your love and your life.”
Claire got up from the chair and leaned against the refrigerator. The hard slick metal cooled her burning shoulders and back. “Oh God!” she said, closing her eyes. When she opened them, he was staring at her. He looked frightened. She tried to speak very quietly now, with seemly control. “What I mean is, we can’t, we mustn’t lose contact with each other over this. You see—oh, I don’t want to sound conceited, but perhaps you don’t know how hard it is, don’t understand that this residency is an—an achievment. And it wasn’t my father’s name that did it. It was my own record. Dr. Macy’s daughter was turned down, and—and others were, and it’s not something I can possibly walk away from and begin over in five years.” She went suddenly weak. “Five years, Ned! Five years out of my life! I would never go back, and in your heart you must know it.”
“You could if you wanted to.”
She couldn’t answer. It occurred to her that the little supper, the fruit, the iced tea and the sandwiches looked pathetic, lying untouched on the table, waiting and wasted as she would wait and waste.
“If I don’t accept, I’ll stay an underling in the firm. Once you refuse a thing like this, they never offer you anything worthwhile again, don’t you understand?”
She did understand; that was the hard part of it. She knew it meant a harsh, continual struggle to survive out there in the world.
“My father left no great legacy, Claire. I’ve got to make it on my own.”
“I know you do.”
“I have a feel for this work. At any rate, it’s what I’ve got my start in and I can’t very well become a—a lawyer or a civil engineer, for Heaven’s sake, can I?”
“No.”
“And I like the work. Naturally, people like what they do well. But it’s really incredible to be paid so much for doing what you like—putting together words that can change people’s minds.”
“I see.”
“You get a feeling of power. Strength and power in a worldwide enterprise.” “I see.”
There was silence. Lowering her eyes to the floor, she studied their feet: Ned’s still in his good English shoes, russet with a fine gloss; hers in the summer sandals she ha
d put on when she came home. They were careless, happy shoes made for running on grass or sitting beside a pool with a drink in hand. Her thoughts ran at this odd tangent. Then she raised her eyes.
“What shall we do?”
He stood up and strode into the living room as if the kitchenette were too confined for his feelings. Two or three times he walked the length of the room. She understood by the pounding of his feet that frustration was turning into anger. The he turned upon her. It came to her that she had never before seen his anger.
“How can you ask what we shall do! I’ve been trying my best to explain! How can there be any question? We’ll go where I can carve out a future for ourselves. It’s the man who supports the family, after all.”
“Not always, Ned.”
“Well, it’s still the pattern. The primary income is the man’s.”
“That will change. It’s changing now. Why am I not entitled to use my energy and brain as much as you are? Tell me, why?”
“Listen, Claire, I don’t want to get into an abstract argument. Sometimes, though, I wonder whether your mother really gave you the best example.”
“Ill say she did!”
“Not if this is the result.”
At ten-thirty they agreed to stop wrangling and went to bed. Exhausted, Claire fell immediately asleep but in the middle of the night woke up. The wind was blowing the shade. It was snapping, as if it were angry, which was absurd; but still it seemed as if the world were threatening at the window. She got up to close it and went back to bed and lay there thinking. She thought about all the hundreds of millions of men who had been born and died and will be born and die, so many transient little lives, each lifting its tiny head above the mass of the rest, each seeking out one other tiny body to cling to. With such fierce, tiny strength, they were drawn to one another as the magnet pulls toward the north. Why just this man, this woman, and no other?