Where Love Has Gone (1962)

by Robbins, Harold

  “Would you put all your money into a project like that?”

  “Sure. But it would be only a drop in the bucket. The land alone would cost two thousand an acre. That’s a hundred and sixty thousand dollars right there.”

  “The money is unimportant,” she said quietly. “I could arrange for the money.”

  “Uh-uh.” I held up my hand. “I don’t want your money. I’d only wind up in the same boat.”

  “Now it’s you who are being foolish, Luke. You’d take the money if it were a total stranger’s, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s different. That would be pure business. Personal relationships would never enter into it.”

  “Our relationship has nothing to do with it,” she said quickly. “You believe in what you want to do, don’t you? You’d expect to make a considerable profit.”

  I nodded. “If it works out the way I think, there could be as much as half a million profit.”

  “I don’t object to making money.” She smiled. “Why should you?”

  Her logic was faultless. Besides how could I argue against my own desires? I bought the land the next day. Two days later Danielle was born.

  I had a few bad moments because she arrived almost two months ahead of schedule. But the doctor told me there was nothing to worry about, the baby was absolutely perfect.

  I hadn’t seen many babies before but I had to agree with him. Dani was the most beautiful baby in the world.

  12

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  The sounds of night were different now. There was always the soft whisper that seemed to come from the baby’s room next to our own. Occasionally she would cry in the small hours of the morning and we could hear the shuffle of the nurse as she gave her a bottle and then the soft crooning of her voice as she held Dani while the baby drank herself back to sleep.

  Unconsciously I fell into the routine and began to listen for the sounds in my sleep, finding reassurance in their regularity, knowing that everything was normal. It was different for Nora.

  Nora came home from the hospital tense, high-strung and nervous. The slightest sound in the night would wake her. I knew something was going to happen but I didn’t know what. I could sense it in her mood. Something in her was lying just below the surface, waiting for the final provocation, and I was wary, determined not to give it to her.

  I moved through the days carefully, hoping that in time the mood would pass. But I was only kidding myself and I realized it the moment the lamp on the night table flashed on one morning at two o’clock.

  I had been out in the field all day with surveyors. The air and the excitement had slugged me to sleep but suddenly I was wide awake behind my closed eyelids. I came up, still pretending sleep. “What’s the matter?”

  Nora was sitting up in bed, her back propped against the pillows, staring at me. “The baby’s crying.”

  I looked at her for a moment, then, still not letting her see I was fully awake, swung my feet off the bed. “I’ll go see if everything’s all right.”

  I got to my feet into my slippers, pulled on my robe and went through the door into Dani’s room. The nurse was already there, holding Dani in her arms, giving her a bottle. She looked at me, her eyes startled in the soft nightlight of the nursery.

  “Mr. Carey.”

  “Is everything all right, Mrs. Holman?”

  “Of course. The poor little thing was just hungry.”

  I walked over and looked down at Dani. Her eyes were already closed and she was sucking on the bottle contentedly. “Mrs. Carey heard her cry,” I said.

  “Tell Mrs. Carey not to worry. Dani’s just fine.”

  I smiled at her and nodded.

  “Dani was just hungry,” I said as I climbed back into bed and turned off the light. I turned on my side and lay there for a few minutes, waiting for her to speak. But she was silent and sleep was heavy on my eyes.

  Then the light came on again. I climbed up the tricky ladder of wakefulness again. “Now what’s the matter?”

  Nora was standing at the far side of her bed, a pillow and blanket clutched in her arms. “You’re snoring.”

  I stared at her without answering. I felt like a punchy fighter who has been congratulating himself on avoiding his opponent and suddenly finds himself on the wrong end of an opponent. There was no way of avoiding the fight now. Suddenly I was angry. “Okay, Nora,” I said. “I’ll give up sleeping. What else do you want?”

  “You don’t have to get nasty.”

  “I’m not being nasty. You’ve been looking for an argument for a long time. Now, what do you want to hang it on?”

  Her voice rose. “I was not looking for an argument!”

  I glanced toward Dani’s room. “You’ll wake the baby.”

  “That’s just what I thought!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “You always think about the baby before you do me. Every time the baby cries, you’re in there worrying about her. You never worry about me! I don’t count, I’m only her mother. I’ve served my purpose!”

  There was no arguing with that kind of stupidity and I made the mistake of telling her so. “Don’t be stupid! Turn off the light and go to sleep.”

  “You’re not talking to a child!”

  I raised myself on one elbow. “If I’m not,” I said, “then stop acting like one!”

  “That’s what you’d like, wouldn’t you? You’d like nothing better than having me here all day to wait on you both hand and foot whenever you chose!”

  I laughed. The whole idea was so completely ridiculous. “I know you can’t cook,” I said. “So how would you wait on us? I’ve never seen you do so much as warm the baby’s bottle, much less feed her.”

  “You’re jealous!”

  “Jealous of what?”

  “You’re jealous because I’m an artist and an individual. All you want to do is subjugate me, have me play second fiddle to you like an ordinary housewife.”

  I lay back wearily. “There are times, I must admit, when I find the idea appealing.”

  “See?” she crowed triumphantly. “I was right!”

  I was exhausted. “Put it out and come to bed, Nora. I’ve got to get up early and go out to the project.”

  “I’m going to bed all right,” she said. “But not in here! I’ve had all I can stand of your snoring and the baby crying.”

  Still clutching the pillow and blanket, she went into the bathroom. Before I could move from my bed, I heard the door to the guest room slam shut. By the time I got there, she had already turned the key in the lock.

  Slowly I went back to my own bed. Maybe it was all for the best. Let her get whatever was bugging her out of her system. Maybe by tomorrow night everything would be normal again.

  But I was wrong. When I got home the next evening the workmen had already started redecorating the other bedroom and Nora had moved her clothing out of our closets.

  I went downstairs and Charles gave me a message that Nora had gone downtown to have dinner with Mr. Corwin and several visiting Eastern art critics. I had dinner alone and worked in the den until eleven thirty, going over the access road plan for the project. Then I went upstairs and looked in on the baby, as I usually did before I went to sleep.

  Dani was sleeping on her side, her tiny eyes screwed tight, her little thumb worrying the corner of her mouth. There was a noise behind me. I turned around. It was the nurse with the bottle.

  I moved back and let the nurse pick her up. Dani found the nipple on the bottle without even opening her eyes.

  “Let me give it to her,” I said suddenly.

  Mrs. Holman smiled. She showed me how to hold the baby and I took Dani into my arms. She opened her eyes for a moment and looked at me. Then, evidently deciding I was trustworthy, she closed her eyes again and went back to work on the bottle.

  I got into bed a little after twelve and Nora hadn’t yet come home. I fell into a restless sleep. I never did know what time she came home that night. I didn’t see her
until I came home from work the next day. By then Nora’s mood had completely changed. She greeted me at the door, smiling. “I’ve got cocktails ready in the library.”

  I kissed her cheek. She was wearing elaborate black hostess pajamas. “You look different,” I said, following her into the library. “Somebody coming for dinner?’

  “No, silly. I just had my hair done.”

  It looked the same to me. I took the drink from her hand. “You had a good day?”

  She sipped at her drink, her eyes sparkling. “Wonderful! It was just what I needed. To get out and begin to be active again.”

  I nodded, smiling. At least the storm had passed.

  “I had dinner with Corwin and Chadwinkes Hunt, the critic, last night. They feel that the sooner I get back to work, the better. Scaasi told Sam he’d like me to have another show, no later than this fall.”

  “Do you think you’ll have enough time to get ready?”

  “More than enough. I’ve been sketching all day. I have a thousand ideas.”

  I held up my glass. “Here’s to your ideas.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled and kissed my cheek. “You’re not angry about last night?”

  “No,” I said easily. “We were both a little wound up.”

  She kissed me again. “I’m glad. I thought you might not like my moving into the other room. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. Mother and Dad always had separate rooms. It’s much more civilized.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course. Even though people are married they’re still entitled to a certain amount of privacy.” She looked at me earnestly. “Besides I think it preserves that little bit of mystery that is so important in any marriage.”

  That was news to me. I’d never heard my parents complain about any lack of privacy. “What do I do when I want to get laid?”

  “Now you’re being vulgar.” Then she smiled mischievously. “All you have to do is whistle.”

  “Like this?” I asked, raising my fingers to my lips.

  “Stop. Charles will think you’ve gone mad!”

  I finished my drink. “I’ll run up and wash my hands and look in on Dani.”

  I looked at her. “How was she today?’

  “Mrs. Holman said she was an angel. Now, hurry and wash up. I had Cookie make a roulade of beef, just the way you like it, and I won’t have it spoiled. After dinner I thought you might come up and see how you liked my room. I had Charles leave an iced bottle of champagne up there.”

  I began to laugh. So that was how it was done. Maybe she wasn’t as far out as I’d thought. I had to admit that it did add a pleasant little touch of the illicit to the whole affair.

  Sometime in the middle of the night I said. “Won’t the servants think it kind of queer that with two bedrooms we wind up using only one?”

  “You’re silly. Who cares what the servants think?”

  “I really don’t,” I said, pulling her close to me again. “But I insist that tomorrow night you be my guest!”

  But it was always in her room that we made love, never in mine. I always wound up having to cross the cold bathroom floor that lay between our rooms. I learned to turn the knob of her door slowly so that she would not hear me, for there were times when I found her door locked. There were times, too, when I fell across my own bed in exhaustion from my work and didn’t know whether her door was unlocked or not.

  I began to feel like a man forced to turn into a one-way street that he knows can lead only to a dead end. I began to dread the rejection of that locked door. A few good jolts of bourbon before I undressed always seemed to ease the tensions so that I had no desire even to try the door.

  I began the habit of giving Dani her midnight bottle and that seemed to help too. Somehow the softness of her filled a void inside me of which I had never really been aware. I would kiss her and put her back in her crib, then go to my room and find sleep.

  On the surface everything was normal. Nora and I acted like any other married couple. We went out several times a week, were asked to parties, had our friends come to our house. She seemed everything a young bride should be. Loving and attentive.

  But when it was time for bed, I’d make an excuse that I had some last-minute work to catch up on. I’d go into the den and have a few quick ones to give her time to go upstairs and fall asleep so that she wouldn’t know whether I tried her door or not.

  If anything about this seemed strange to Nora, she never said a word about it. Time drifted by and she seemed content with the way things were. She was engrossed in her work, and several nights a week she went to art meetings or dinners. On other nights she would work in her studio, so that I never knew whether she came up to her room or slept in the small bedroom that she had fixed up down there.

  Routine is a deadly thing. After awhile it seemed to me that this was the way it had always been and always would be. Like nothing.

  What I didn’t know was that in her own peculiar dream-filled world Nora was almost as much afraid of me as I was of her.

  She remembered the pain. The terrible tearing pain that seemed to move down from her stomach as the baby tore its way out of her. The pain and the bright white lights staring down at her from the soft green ceiling of the delivery room. Every color was clear and distinct. The blood on the white rubber gloves of the doctor. The black knob on the grey metal tank beside the anesthetist. It was always like that in her dreams. Even in that she wasn’t like other people. She dreamed in technicolor.

  The doctor’s voice whispered reassuringly in her ear. “Bear down, Mrs. Carey. Bear down and it will all be over in a few minutes.”

  “I can’t!” she tried to scream up at him but no sound escaped her lips. “I can’t, it hurts too much.” She felt the tears dribbling down from the corners of her eyes. She knew how they must look rolling down her cheeks. Like tiny sparkling diamonds.

  “You must, Mrs. Carey,” the doctor whispered again. She could see the purple-red veins on the side of his nose as he leaned over her.

  “I can’t!” she screamed again. “I can’t stand the pain. For God’s sake, do something or I’ll go out of my mind! Cut it up and take it out in tiny pieces! Make it stop hurting me!”

  She felt the prick of a needle in her arm. She looked up at the doctor in sudden fear. She’d just remembered that he was a Catholic and Catholics believed in letting the mother die and saving the child. “What are you doing?” she screamed at him. “Don’t kill me, kill the baby. Please, I don’t want to die.”

  “Don’t worry,” the doctor said quietly. “Nobody’s going to die.”

  “I don’t believe you!” She struggled trying to get up but there were hands pressed against her shoulders holding her down. “I’m going to die. I know it. I’m going to die!”

  “Count down from ten, Mrs. Carey,” the doctor said calmly. “Ten, nine—”

  “Eight, seven, six.” She looked up into his face. He was getting all fuzzy around the edges. Like in the movies when the picture was out of focus. “Eight, seven, six, five, four, seven, five, three.”

  The dark came up. The soft rolling dark.

  13

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  A sound coming from the studio next to the small bedroom in which she slept woke Nora. She sat up suddenly. “Is that you, Charles?”

  Footsteps came to the door. It opened to admit Sam Corwin. “What are you doing in here?” he asked.

  “I worked late last night.” She looked at her wristwatch. It was almost ten o’clock. It had been only five when she’d sprawled across the bed too tired even to take off her coveralls. “What are you doing up so early?”

  Sam lit a cigarette. “I’ve got big news for you.”

  She got to her feet wearily. She ran her fingers through her hair. It felt gritty and dirty. “What news?”

  “Your United Nations sketch has been approved. Yours will be the only statue by a woman in the United Nations Plaza in New York!”
/>   The weariness disappeared, displaced by a sudden elation. “When did you find out?”

  “An hour ago, Scaasi called me from New York. I came right over.”

  She felt a surge of triumph. She had been right. Even Luke would have to admit that now. She looked at Sam. “Have you told anyone yet?”

  He shook his head. “No. But we’ll have to get a release out this morning.”

  She walked into the studio. “I want to tell Luke about it before he hears it anywhere else.”

  “Well,” he said, “it will be on the wires from New York by afternoon.”

  “Then let’s tell him now.”

  Sam followed her down the corridor to the foyer. Charles was just coming down the steps.

  “Has Mr. Carey left yet, Charles?”

  “Yes, mum. He left shortly after eight o’clock, with the baby and Mrs. Holman.”

  “They went with him?” Nora exclaimed in surprise. “What on earth for?”

  “He said something about it being his big day, mum. This is the day the first group of houses will be completed and there’s to be a ceremony. He left a message suggesting that you come out if you had the time.”

  “Thank you, Charles. He did mention something about it. I had forgotten.”

  The butler nodded and stood aside to let them pass. Sam followed her up to her room. He closed the door behind them. “You didn’t know about it, did you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He looked around the room. For the first time he was aware that this wasn’t the room she shared with Luke. “What’s the idea of separate rooms all of a sudden? Is there anything wrong between you and Luke?”

  “There’s nothing wrong.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said softly. “This is your old friend Sam, remember? You can talk to me.”

  Suddenly she was weeping against his chest. “Oh, Sam, Sam,” she cried. “You don’t know how horrible it all is. He’s sick. The war’s done something to him. He’s not normal.