Corporation Wife

by Catherine Gaskin

  It was almost noon when Sally got home. She ignored the manuscript on the living-room desk, and she spent the next hour on the telephone, canvassing support for the dramatic society, as she had promised Susan Watts she would do. Then she showered and dressed for a meeting of the library committee at two-thirty. She hadn’t intended to go, but now she knew she must. Barbara Taylor was also on the committee. When they met, Sally would apologise with great humility for her absence on Sunday, tell some lies about her mother being ill, which she didn’t want to do, and then she would offer to do some work for the Cancer Fund, in which Barbara Taylor was interested. Once before she had hinted that she would like Sally’s help in raising money, and Sally had managed to ignore the hint. Now she would ignore it no longer. She would work for the Cancer Fund and everything else Barbara Taylor wanted her to work for, until the memory of last Sunday’s mistake had been wiped out. But she had little hope that what she would promise Barbara Taylor this afternoon would bring an invitation for to-morrow.

  Before she left for Betty Thompson’s house, where the committee was meeting, she put away the manuscript, for she knew now that it wasn’t just to Barbara Taylor, but to every other aspect of corporation life that she must devote her time and energies. She must never again neglect any of the things that were a part of the life of any woman who wanted to help her husband, who wanted to prove that she was capable of handling any of the social or civic duties the corporation gave to her. In the corporation not only the man, but the woman he had married, counted in unknowable, intangible ways; if she would fail Tom in this respect, it hardly mattered in what other ways she compensated. Last Sunday, on a sudden impulse, she had gone rushing headlong back to her family, escaping the atmosphere of the corporation and the town because they had seemed unsympathetic and even hostile. In doing this she had damaged Tom in the eyes of a man who could either push him forward or hold him back. The novel was part of the same pattern of impulse and indulgence of self, demanding time and loyalty that had nothing to do with Tom or the corporation. It was a luxury which they, she and Tom both, couldn’t at the moment afford.

  She was both angry and determined as she walked towards Betty Thompson’s house on the other side of Amtec Park.

  ‘Well, if it’s an organiser they want,’ she told herself, ‘I’ll be the best damned organiser they ever saw.’

  Ten

  Jeannie grew tired and despairing of the trips to the police station to go through the photos of men arrested for other crimes in the neighbouring states, and perhaps among them to find and identify Patrino and Reitch. At first she looked at them impatiently, waiting to see the faces she knew, and then after a time it began to dawn in her that perhaps she was never going to see them. The conviction came slowly, unwillingly, but it grew steadily when she noticed that the sheriff didn’t send the patrol car to pick her up any more, but just asked her to drop into the station, as if the matter had no great urgency. She knew from that that he didn’t believe, either, that Patrino and Reitch would ever show on those files. One day he voiced his doubt. ‘There’s a rape committed every thirty seconds in the United States, Jeannie,’ he said, and his tone carried a weary acceptance of the fact of crime. ‘Unless the guy concerned already had a criminal record, we don’t have much hope of catching up with him. Those mug shots you look at ‒ that’s only the off-chance that either Patrino or Reitch might have been using an alias. But I don’t think so ‒ I don’t think so.’

  The town heard that Val Reitch had sold the house trailer, and left the construction camp. With Val’s going, the case appeared to die ‒ the fact that the police let her leave the district seemed to indicate that there was only a long chance of getting Patrino or Reitch, or if they did it would only be because they were arrested for some other crime. Jeannie and Burnham Falls read the signs that way, and even her father stopped calling daily into John Benedict’s office and pressing for some action from his young assistant.

  Jeannie’s face healed, and the dentist put a cap on one of her teeth that had been chipped when she fell. That seemed all that could be done. That seemed to end the matter.

  For Jeannie it wasn’t ended because she didn’t know how to take up her life again. Some kind of necessary vitality had been missing from her since that Sunday night; she seemed to have no will to do anything for longer than ten minutes at a time. She had not yet been back to her place behind the counter at Carter’s; Wally had called her on the phone to tell her that he had hired young Judy Thomas to fill in until she wanted to come back.

  ‘Just till you feel O.K. again, Jeannie. Just till then,’ he said, faintly apologetic.

  The news didn’t worry her, because it left her almost unmoved. She went back to practising her typing and shorthand in a kind of routine, mindless way that quite effectively shut out her thoughts. She didn’t go anywhere, and she filled the rest of her days and evenings playing absent-mindedly with Chrissie, or sitting vacantly in front of the television set. There was comfort of a kind in Chrissie’s undemanding, babyish company. Only Chrissie did not know that she was waiting, or what she was waiting for.

  But there was no phone call from Jerry; in the weeks that followed there was no sign from him, no message. The routine life of the town went on, carrying the Talbots with it, as it had always done.

  II

  Once, on one of his brief trips to Burnham Falls for Amtec, Mal Hamilton went to the Talbot house to see Jeannie. The visit was a mistake; he could see, even through Jeannie’s listless, apathetic manner, that his presence embarrassed her. He had meant to reassure her, to offer some token of fellowship that might tell her that he regarded her like all other women, that he himself felt no embarrassment over the memory of that Saturday night. But she was too young to feel any fellowship with him, too absorbed in her own emotions. To her he was still a stranger. He smoked one cigarette, while Selma sat bolt upright, and Jeannie slouched on the sofa, and he tried desperately to make conversation with the two tight-lipped women. He stubbed out the cigarette, and rose to go with relief. Afterwards he drove straight, to the Carpenter house, to Harriet.

  He dropped into a chair on the veranda, declined the whisky Harriet offered him, and accepted tea from her instead.

  ‘I thought it was the right thing to do,’ he said, telling her about his visit to Jeannie. ‘I knew we’d be bound to meet sometime, since I’m in Burnham Falls so often now, and I thought this was a better way than just running into her casually on the street. I wanted her to relax a little about it. You know what I mean? I wanted her to know that I thought she was a nice kid …’

  ‘She doesn’t know you, Mal,’ Harriet said, stirring her tea thoughtfully. ‘And I suppose she’d rather forget the way she met you. She’s still in a kind of shock about it. I’ve dropped in to see her a couple of times, and she’s just the same with me. Hardly talks … and doesn’t seem to care whether I stay or go.’

  ‘I guess I should admit,’ Mal said, ‘that I really went there to straighten out her idea of me. I don’t think she remembers much of what happened that night, after she called to me.’ He grinned, and shrugged. ‘Well … I don’t suppose too many other men wouldn’t want to revel a little in the role of playing rescuer to a beautiful young girl.’

  Their talk drifted from the subject of Jeannie. They said nothing of much consequence to each other, nothing that Nell could not have overheard, and he left very soon to drive back to New York.

  But it was the first of the visits that he began to make whenever he was in Burnham Falls. Now he didn’t wait for Steve’s invitation; he would come always in the afternoon, when he was through with his business with Amtec and on the way back to New York. He never stayed more than half an hour, and sometimes he sat in the kitchen with Harriet and Nell, and other times he got no farther than the veranda. Nell liked to see him come; she set the tea tray as Claudia Carpenter had taught her, with the fine china and the lace-trimmed cloths. Harriet grew accustomed to seeing the delicate Minton in Mal’s sinewy
sun-burned hands in place of the whisky glass. He seemed to enjoy the ritual.

  And when he left, he never spoke of coming again. His visits were always unannounced, and if Harriet were not there, he would drink a cup of tea with Nell, or with Gene and Tim when they were at home, and then go on his way. Harriet began to make reasons why she should always get back to the house in the late afternoons.

  III

  Within a week after Phil Conrad’s visit to Burnham Falls, Laura had made arrangements to go back to dramatic lessons with Goodman. It was easier to do than she expected. She met Ed’s objections with a bravado and coolness that her need for Phil gave to her, and with the security of the knowledge she had been slowly gaining since she came to Burnham Falls to back her up. She had come to know Ed’s fear that this marriage, also, might crash, and he feared what its failure would do to his standing in the corporation. He needed the glittering picture of a successful marriage to a glamorous woman behind him; he needed the respect and envy it aroused. He needed the image of his well-run home and expensively dressed wife in her white Thunderbird because it helped wipe out the memory of the woman who had walked away from marriage to him.

  She had announced her plans one night over dinner, when she knew that the presence of Elizabeth and Clare at the table would prevent an outburst from Ed. In the living-room, after Grace had served the coffee, he turned to her.

  ‘Why are you taking lessons from Goodman again? You don’t seriously suppose anyone will risk you in another play? You’ve been away from Broadway too long.’

  She put down her cup with a clatter. ‘I have my reasons ‒ I’m not as dead on Broadway as you think.’

  ‘Then for God’s sake don’t get involved in any more flops.’

  ‘There won’t be any more flops,’ she said. Then deliberately, triumphantly, she brought out her news. ‘Phil Conrad has asked me to read for a new television play he’s putting in the Amtec series. It’s called The Other Kind. He says he thinks I’m right for the leading role.’

  He gave her a long, careful look, wondering, she thought, if she were lying. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Laura knew why he held back his words. So she spoke for him.

  ‘Amtec would like to see me in that role ‒ on an Amtec show,’ she said. ‘It would be good for us ‒ for both of us, Ed.’

  And so every Tuesday morning early she sped down the parkway in the Thunderbird towards New York. She drove too fast, she knew, and recklessly, and yet on Tuesday mornings she drove with a lightness and sureness that was never present at other times. On Tuesday night she saw Phil, and the awareness of it touched every action of the day.

  The lessons with Goodman were her excuse for staying over-night in New York; it was very simple to tell Ed that she was too tired to drive back to Burnham Falls, and to witness him wanting to make an objection, and not daring to. She had a room permanently booked at the Plaza for Tuesday nights.

  The day took on a familiar pattern. First she went to her hairdressers, then an hour’s shopping, a quick lunch, and then to Goodman’s studio.

  The first time the old man saw her he held out his hands to her in a sudden, unfamiliar gesture of warmth and admiration.

  ‘Why, Laura ‒ child, what’s happened to you? You’re beautiful!’

  She felt herself blush. Over the years she had become accustomed to being told to her face that she was beautiful, but Goodman had never offered her the slightest tribute of that kind. He had regarded her as a working machine, nothing more personal than that. It was a very long time since she had taken such pleasure in a compliment.

  He even took her hands in his. ‘What has happened to you?’ he repeated. ‘I told myself that you’d fade away in the country ‒ that you couldn’t exist away from New York. But look at you!’ He peered at her closely. ‘The marriage ‒ it’s a success, eh? Is that why you look as you do?’

  It would have been easy to lie, but she didn’t even try. She just looked at him, and, strangely, unbidden tears came to her eyes. But they were happy tears, and she smiled at him.

  He shrugged. ‘Well, it’s none of my business. But you are in love, and from this ‒ maybe we can work. You’ve never been in love before. Perhaps that’s why you weren’t an actress.’

  It was wonderful to Laura to work with him again. All the old magic was there, the striving to reach out of herself to move him, the desire to win a word of praise from him. But added to it was the need now to express what was within herself, a choking, overwhelming emotion that demanded outlet and acknowledgment.

  After three sessions Goodman said, ‘You are trying to say too much, Laura. This, like everything else, must be disciplined. But better too much than nothing.’

  Laura knew that there was too much within her now to confine successfully. She was not used to the feeling that possessed her, a kind of explosiveness and joy that was like nothing she had ever known. She was in love with Phil, and for the moment she wanted nothing more. She did not question the future beyond next Tuesday. From week to week she lived on memory and anticipation. In between was a haze where she wrapped herself in her own happiness and thrust aside every other consideration.

  In the beginning it was a solid happiness. She was not sure of Phil, whether he really loved or wanted her, but she told herself that it was still early in the game, and she had her chance of winning. She thought she had a good chance. On Tuesday afternoons she would rush from Goodman’s studio back to the Plaza, and there would be the telephone message from Phil, waiting for her like a piece of solid gold.

  They met either in his hotel or hers. After his divorce he had moved into a hotel, and had so far not bothered to find himself an apartment. She would have liked it different; she would have liked the intimacy of an apartment and the feeling of a place that belonged to them more than a hotel suite belonged. But Phil was a man who disliked attachments to places or things. He had a gourmet’s appreciation of good food, but he never wanted to prepare it himself, nor did he care who prepared it for him. He liked the impersonal quality of the room service because it made no demands on him.

  ‘I’ve got too much on my mind to worry about who’s going to wash my shirts or cook my meals,’ he said to Laura. ‘That’s the business of laundries and restaurants.’

  She would indeed have liked it different, but she had no domestic skills herself, and so she could offer no reply. All she wanted and needed was to please him, and if it broke into the pleasure and exclusiveness of their evening to have waiters bring dinner in, then she didn’t, at first, mind, because Phil himself did not. In the beginning she was more sure, more hopeful.

  Because the first weeks were memorable ‒ for both of them. She knew this, even if Phil never told her so in words. She would lie with her arms about him and feel his pleasure strongly, and know herself possessed by a man with desire and good reason. He was a skilful lover, practised, teaching a little and taking pleasure in her response. He did not know that her response was a new thing, something that only he made possible, and which only her need for him had brought out. It was in these first weeks she learned that before this she had never been very good in bed.

  IV

  It was Selma who brought Jeannie the news ‒ Selma with her face sharpened by concern. It was Saturday morning, and she and Ted had been to the supermarket for the week’s groceries. She dumped the last of the loaded boxes on the kitchen table, and started to unpack them briskly, making too much noise in the process.

  Jeannie came in the kitchen doorway. She made a move forward to help her mother, and Selma, turning, wasn’t able to avoid looking directly at her.

  Instantly Jeannie tensed. ‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  Selma paused and licked her lips. ‘I heard something about Jerry ‒ Mrs. Carter told me. I met her in the supermarket.’

  ‘What did you hear?’ The words were rapped out fiercely.

  ‘He’s joined the Army. He’s doing his hitch now instead
of after college.’ She moved a little nearer Jeannie, as if pleading with her not to let the words hurt her. ‘He’s ‒ he’s leaving on Monday.’

  ‘Monday ‒?’ Jeannie’s face had gone dead. The colour had drained from it quickly; it looked white and frozen. ‘Monday ‒!’ She stood quite still for a moment, her brain locked in disbelief. Then quite suddenly she jerked her head back, struggling for some hope to lean against. ‘You’re quite sure?’ she said to Selma. ‘You’re quite sure she said he’d definitely joined up? He isn’t just thinking about it, is he? He’s going on Monday ‒ definitely?’

  ‘That’s what she said, Jeannie.’

  She turned and left the kitchen. Selma made a hesitant movement to follow her, then forced herself to stop. She went back and started to unpack the groceries; she felt and knew that she was useless at the moment. There was nothing for her to do except strain her ears for sounds from the other part of the house. Presently she heard the front door close gently, but when she looked cautiously from the window, Jeannie wasn’t in the yard with Ted and Chrissie. She wasn’t in the front garden either. Selma went back to the kitchen, and disregarding the groceries still strewn about, she lit one of her rare cigarettes. Then she noticed that her hands were trembling.

  After a while Ted came in. He looked at his wife sitting slumped in the chair. ‘Have you told her?’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  A rough sort of grunt in his throat was his only reply. He put on some coffee to heat, and in silence they sat together and drank it.

  Jeannie went directly to the First National Bank. Not since that Saturday had she walked alone through town; she had dreaded the first time and had so far avoided it, but now she scarcely knew that she was threading her way through the Saturday morning summer crowd, and that some of them greeted her, and wanted to stop and talk, and some just stared. On the library steps there was the usual crowd of teenagers, ones who had been a few grades lower than she at school. Almost every one of them stopped talking as she approached, and an unnatural quiet marked her passing. At once the voices sounded again, but the pitch was now a little more intense. She had broken into a hard perspiration by the time she swung open the doors of the First National.