The Pilot's Wife

by Anita Shreve

  In the background, Kathryn heard part of a sentence, muffled words. A masculine voice.

  “Mattie?”

  She heard her daughter whisper. A suppressed giggle. Bits of another sentence. A distinctly masculine voice.

  “Mattie? What’s happening? Who’s there?”

  “No one. Mom, I gotta go.”

  Above the phone, on the wall, there were names and numbers written in pen and colored marker. Roland at Margaret’s, one note read.

  “Mattie, who’s there? I can hear someone.”

  “Oh, that’s just Tommy.”

  “Tommy Arsenault?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Mattie . . .”

  “Jason and I broke up.”

  The man beside her was jostled, and he spilled beer on Kathryn’s sleeve. He smiled apologetically and tried ineffectually to wipe the spill with his hand.

  “When did that happen?” Kathryn asked.

  “Last night. What time is it there?”

  Kathryn looked at her watch, which she had not yet set to London time. She calculated. “It’s five forty-five,” she said.

  “Five hours,” Mattie said.

  “Why did you break up with Jason?” Kathryn asked, not acquiescing to the change in subject.

  “I didn’t think we had that much in common anymore.” “Oh, Mattie...”

  “It’s OK, Mom. Really, it’s OK.”

  “What are you and Tommy doing?”

  “Just hanging out. Mom, I gotta go.”

  Kathryn tried once again to calm herself.

  “What are you going to do today?” Kathryn asked.

  “I don’t know, Mom. It’s sunny out, but there’s a lot of wet snow out there. You’re sure you’re OK?”

  Kathryn toyed with the idea of saying no to keep Mattie on the line, but she knew that was the worst sort of parental blackmail.

  “I’m fine,” Kathryn said. “Really.” “I gotta go, Mom.”

  “I’ll be home tomorrow night.”

  “Cool. Really, I gotta go.”

  “Love you,” Kathryn said, wanting to hold on to her daughter’s voice.

  “Love you,” Mattie said quickly.

  Free to go now.

  Kathryn heard the transatlantic click.

  She leaned her head against the wall. A young man in a pin-striped suit waited patiently beside her and then, finally, took the receiver from her hand.

  She crawled under a sea of legs, retrieved her shoes at the bar, and went out into the rain. She bought an umbrella at a newsstand, thinking as she paid for it that the manufacture of umbrellas in England must be an evergreen enterprise. She felt briefly sorry for herself and thought that in addition to everything else, she would doubtless get a cold. It was Julia’s theory that if one cried in public, one would catch a cold. It wasn’t so much retribution for the display of emotion as it was the irritation of mucous membranes in the presence of foreign germs. Kathryn felt momentarily homesick for Julia, would have liked a glimpse of the woman in her bathrobe, would have liked a cup of tea.

  Kathryn marveled at the umbrella’s protection (a brilliant design, she thought) and deeply appreciated the anonymity it afforded. If she watched the feet around her carefully, she could hide her face from people as they passed; the umbrella acted as a veil.

  All of London in the rain, she thought, while Ely basked in sunshine.

  She walked until she found a park. She thought possibly she should not enter a park at night, although there were lanterns that made pools of light near the benches. The rain was letting up some, seemed merely a drizzle now. The grass had transformed itself into gray beneath the lantern light. She walked to a black bench and sat down.

  She was sitting next to what appeared to be a circular rose garden. Lanterns lit the thorns of pruned canes, and the barrier looked formidable. Kathryn thought: It was not just a betrayal of me, but a betrayal of Mattie and Julia. A violation of the family circle.

  The rain stopped altogether, and she put the umbrella on the bench. Her chenille scarf, in her travels, had begun to come unraveled at a corner. She fingered the unanchored stitch, gave it a tentative tug. She could fix this when she got home, remake the corner with another strand of chenille. She tugged a bit harder on the yarn, pulled out six or seven stitches, an oddly satisfying gesture. She tugged again, felt the stuttering of the tiny knots giving way.

  She unraveled one row and then another. Then another and another. The yarn made a loose and pleasant tangle on her knees, at her ankles. Jack had given her the scarf for her birthday.

  Kathryn pulled until she had a mound of twisted chenille as big as a small pile of leaves. She let the last of the yarn fall onto the grass. She stuck her frozen hands into the pockets of her coat.

  She would have to recast all her memories now.

  An older man in a tan raincoat stopped in front of her. Perhaps he was distressed to find a woman sitting on a wet bench with a tangle of yarn at her feet. Possibly he was married and was thinking of his wife. In the instant before he could ask after Kathryn, she said hello and bent to retrieve the yarn. She found the end and began to roll the black chenille into a ball rapidly, with practiced gestures.

  She smiled.

  “Dreadful weather,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” she said pleasantly.

  Seemingly satisfied by Kathryn’s display of industry, the man moved on.

  When he was gone, she tucked the yarn out of the way under the bench. She thought: I didn’t know about my daughter’s sexual life, and I didn’t know about my husband’s sexual life.

  In the distance, she could see halos on street lamps, a chorus of brake lights, a couple running across a road. The rain had started again. They had on long raincoats, and the young woman wore heels. They kept their chins tucked against the rain. The man held his raincoat closed in front of his crotch with one hand, had his other arm around the woman’s shoulder, urging her forward before the light changed.

  Muire Boland and Jack might have done that in this city, she thought. Run to beat a light. On the way to dinner, to a pub. To the theater. To a party to be with other people. To a bed.

  Muire Boland’s marriage had weight. Two children as opposed to one. Two young children.

  And then she thought: How could anything that had produced such beautiful children be thought invalid?

  She walked until she saw, from a distance, the discreet marquee, a facade she recognized. The hotel was quiet when she entered, and only a clerk, standing in a cone of light behind the reception desk, greeted her. As she walked to the elevators, her clothes felt heavy and sodden.

  She was enormously relieved that she could remember her room number. As she put the key in the lock, Robert emerged from the room next door.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. His forehead was furrowed, his tie loosened to the middle of his chest. “I’ve been out of my mind wondering what happened to you,” he said.

  She blinked in the unflattering hall light and pushed her hair off her face.

  “Do you know what time it is?” he asked. Sounding, in his genuine concern, like a parent with an errant child.

  She did not.

  “It’s one o’clock in the morning,” he informed her.

  She withdrew the key from its lock and moved to where Robert stood, holding open his door. Through the framed space, she could see a meal, virtually untouched, on a tray at the foot of the bed. Even from the hallway, the room smelled heavily of cigarette smoke.

  “Come in,” he said. “You look like hell.”

  Once inside the door, she let her coat fall from her shoulders. “You’re actually dirty,” Robert said.

  She slipped off her shoes, which had lost their shape and color. He pulled out the chair from the desk.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  She did as she was told. He sat on the bed, facing her, their knees touching — her wet stockings, his gray wool. He had on a white shirt, not the same shirt he’d had on at lunch. He looke
d a different man, drawn and exhausted, the eyes lined, an older man than at lunch. She imagined that she, too, had aged considerably.

  He took her hands in his. Her hands felt swallowed by his long fingers.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  “I’ve been walking. Just walking. I don’t know where I went. Yes, I do. I went to a pub and drank beer. I walked to a rose garden and unraveled a scarf.”

  “Unraveled a scarf.”

  “My life, I meant to say.”

  “I gather it was bad,” he said.

  “You could say that.”

  “I gave you thirty-five minutes, and then I followed you to the address. You must have gone already. I walked up and down the street for an hour and a half, and then I saw a woman who wasn’t you leave the building. She had two children with her.”

  Kathryn looked at the uneaten sandwich on the tray. It might have been turkey.

  “I think I’m hungry,” she said.

  Robert reached around, took the sandwich from the tray, and handed it to her. She balanced the plate on her lap, and she shivered slightly.

  “Eat some, and then get into a hot bath. Do you want me to order you a drink?”

  “No, I think I’ve had enough. You’re being very parental.” “Jesus, Kathryn.”

  The meat in the sandwich had been pressed so flat that it felt on her tongue like slippery vinyl. She put the sandwich down.

  “I was getting ready to call the police,” he said. “I’d already called the number where you’d gone. Repeatedly. There was never an answer.”

  “They were Jack’s children.”

  He didn’t seem surprised.

  “You guessed,” she said.

  “It was a possibility. I didn’t think about children, though. That was her? Muire Boland? Leaving the building? His . . . ?”

  “Wife,” she said. “They were married. In a church.”

  He sat back. She watched the disbelief turn reluctantly to belief.

  “In a Catholic church,” Kathryn said.

  “When?”

  “Four and a half years ago.”

  On the bed was an overnight bag, unzipped at the top. The shirt he’d worn at lunch was peeking out of the bag. Bits of a newspaper had fallen off the bed onto the floor. On the desk, there was a half-empty bottle of mineral water.

  She saw that he was examining her, as a doctor might do. Looking at the face for signs of illness.

  “I’m over the worst of it,” she said.

  “Your clothes are ruined.”

  “They’ll dry out.”

  He held her knees.

  “I’m so sorry, Kathryn.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “We will,” he said. “First thing tomorrow. We’ll change the tickets.”

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she said, handing him the plate back.

  “No.”

  “You tried to warn me.”

  He looked away.

  “I am hungry,” she said. “But I can’t eat this.” “I’ll order you fruit and cheese. Some soup.” “That would be nice.”

  She stood up, then faltered. She felt light-headed.

  He stood with her, and she pressed her forehead against his shirt.

  “All those years,” she said, “it was all false.”

  “Shhhh . . .”

  “He had a son, Robert. Another daughter.”

  He pulled her closer, trying to comfort her.

  “All those times we made love,” she said. “For four and a half years, I made love to the man while he had another woman. Another wife. I did things. We did things. I can remember them....”

  “It’s OK.”

  “It’s not OK. I sent him love notes. I wrote things on cards to him. He accepted them.”

  Robert rubbed her back.

  “It’s better that I know,” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s better not to live a lie.”

  She sensed a quick change in his breathing, like a hiccup. She drew away and saw that he looked drained. He rubbed his eyes.

  “I’ll take my bath now,” she said. “I’m sorry to have worried you. I should have called.”

  He put a hand up as if to tell her she needn’t apologize. “What matters is that you’re back,” he said, and she could see the strain of not having known on his face.

  “You can hardly stand,” he said.

  “I’d like to take the bath here. I don’t want to be alone in my room. After the bath, I’ll be fine.”

  She saw that he doubted she would be fine.

  She ran the water hot and emptied a bottle of shower gel into the tub that made a froth of suds. She was startled, when she undressed, to see just how filthy her clothes were, to see that a part of the hem of her skirt had come undone. She stood naked in the center of the room. She made dirty footprints on the white tiles. On a glass shelf were towels and a pretty basket with toiletries.

  She put a foot into the water and winced, then stepped in. Slowly, she sank into the tub.

  She washed her hair and face using the soapy water, too tired to get the shampoo. She pulled a towel off a rack, rolled it, and laid it on the lip of the tub. She leaned back, resting her neck on the towel.

  A leather toilet kit was perched precariously on the small porcelain sink. The blazer with the gold buttons hung on the hook at the back of the door. Beyond the door, she could hear a knocking, a door opening, a brief conversation, a pause, and then a door shutting again. Room service, she thought. She wished she’d ordered a cup of tea. A cup of tea would have been perfect.

  The casement window had been opened a crack, and she could hear street sounds below, traffic noise, a distant shout. Even at one o’clock in the morning.

  She felt drowsy and closed her eyes. Despite the buoyancy of the water, it would be an effort to move her body, to climb out of the tub. She willed herself to empty her mind, to think of hot water and soap and nothing else.

  When the door opened, she did not move, made no effort to cover herself, though the bubbles had thinned some and the tops of her breasts might have been exposed.

  Her knees rose from the suds like volcanic islands. Her toes toyed with the chain of the plug.

  He’d ordered tea. A glass of brandy.

  He laid the cup and the glass on the edge of the tub. He stood back and leaned against the sink, put his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He crossed his legs at the ankles. She knew that he was looking at her body.

  “I’d mix them together if I were you,” he said.

  She sat up to do as he had suggested.

  “I’ll leave you alone,” he said.

  “Don’t go.”

  Behind him, the mirror over the sink was opaque with steam. Near the window, the outside air mixing with the heat created wisps of cloud. She poured the brandy into the tea, stirred the two together, and took a long swallow. Immediately, she felt the heat at the center of her body. The medicinal properties of brandy were amazing, she thought.

  She held the teacup with soapy fingers.

  His jaw moved. He might have sighed. He took a hand out of a pocket and rubbed the beads of moisture on the lip of the sink with his thumb.

  “I’ll need a robe,” she said.

  In the end, she told him everything. In the dark, lying on his bed, she told him every word she could remember of the meeting in the white town house. He listened without saying much, murmuring here and there, once or twice asking a question. She wore the terrycloth hotel robe, and he stayed dressed. He trailed his fingers up and down her arm as she spoke. When they grew chilly, he pulled a comforter over them. She burrowed her head into the space between his chest and his arm. In the dark, she felt the unfamiliar warmth of his body, heard his breathing next to her. She thought there might be something else that she wanted to say, but before she could form the words, she drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning, she sat on the edge of the bed in the white robe, hemming he
r skirt with a sewing kit she’d found in the basket of toiletries. Robert had been on the telephone, talking with the airline, changing plane tickets, but now he was polishing her shoes. An oblong of sunlight lit the room from behind the white net curtain. She thought she had probably not moved at all while she had slept. When she’d woken, Robert had already showered and dressed.

  “These are almost unsalvageable,” Robert said.

  “I only have to make it home.”

  “We’ll go down to breakfast,” he said. “Have a real breakfast.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “There’s no hurry.”

  She sewed patiently and evenly, as Julia had once, long ago, taught her to do, hoping the tiny card of thread would last. She was aware that Robert was watching her intently. Something had changed since the night before, she reflected; her gestures seemed to be taking on a special precision, being so closely observed.

  “You look almost happy,” she said, glancing up at him.

  The insanity of yesterday lurked in the shadows, Kathryn knew, and it would always be there, a dark place in a lighted room. It would nag at her, drag her down when she let it. She thought then that she ought to be able to say she’d had the worst, got it over with. It would be a boon of sorts to know that a nadir had been reached. She could almost feel the freedom of that, to live one’s life and not be afraid.

  But she knew already that such freedom was an illusion and that there might be more to come. All she had to do was imagine Mattie on the plane that had gone down. It might be Mattie on a future plane. Life could dish out worse than Kathryn had had, and worse than that. In fact, she thought, her life might be all the more harrowing for knowing what was out there.

  She put down her sewing and watched Robert buff her shoes. The gestures reminded her of Jack, his foot perched on the pulled-out bread drawer. How long ago was that, exactly?

  She rose from her chair and kissed Robert at the side of his mouth, her hands full with the stitching, his with her shoes. She could feel his surprise. She put her wrists on his shoulders and looked at him.

  “Thank you for coming with me to London,” she said. “I don’t know how I’d have gotten through last night without you.”