Point of No Return

by John P. Marquand

  “Don’t try to put your feet into the front seat, Bill,” Charles said, “and don’t sit on the back of your spine. They won’t approve of it when you go to Exeter.”

  He had not intended to mention Exeter. He did not want to talk about anything in particular. He felt relaxed and tired, but pleasantly tired.

  “We ought to buy some garden hose,” he said. “I wonder whether they have any decent hose this year.”

  “Oh, never mind it now,” Nancy said. “Let’s just go on home and maybe you and Bill had better rake the lawn, or perhaps we might just sit around and do nothing for a while. I’d rather like to do nothing.” She glanced at him quickly. “How did it all look when you got back?”

  “Oh,” he said, “the general situation?”

  “Yes,” she said, “that God-damned situation.”

  “Now, Nancy,” he said. “The children.”

  “It’s all right,” Nancy said. “The children know I swear sometimes,” but of course neither of them could speak fully of the general situation in front of the children.

  “It looks about the same,” Charles said. “I only saw Tony Burton for a minute. He came in late and he was busy but he said he was looking forward to tonight, that he had something on his mind.”

  “Is that the way he put it, looking forward?”

  It was awkward, talking in that veiled way in front of the children. “Nance,” he said, “there isn’t anything more I can do. Let’s try to forget it, shall we?”

  “Just as long as it gets over,” she said, “one way or another. You haven’t forgotten about that payment on the mortgage, have you?”

  He could understand this association of ideas. They were turning into the gateway of Sycamore Park and he could see the whitewashed brick of their house already.

  “No, I haven’t,” he said. “Can you name one time when I’ve forgotten about the mortgage?” The lawn had never looked so green and the house had never looked so well. “Do you know what I think?” He raised his voice because he did not like to think of Bill and Evelyn in the back seat trying to piece their words together as children always did. “I think it’s about time Bill and Evvie learned to sail.” The idea must have come to him both from thinking of the products of the Nickerson Cordage Company and from that glimpse of the Sound from the station platform.

  “Learned to sail?” Nancy repeated.

  “I don’t see why not,” he said. “Here we live right near the water and we’ve never had a boat. I don’t see why we shouldn’t—an eighteen-foot knockabout or something”—and then he checked himself before he said any more. He sounded exactly as his father had and even the words were almost the same.

  “Do you really mean that about a sailboat?” he heard Bill asking.

  “I don’t know why not,” he said. “We’ll have to think about it, Bill.”

  The car had stopped and Bill and Evelyn were on the graveled driveway.

  He and Bill and Evelyn were still talking about that hypothetical sailboat when Nancy opened the side door and called him. The idea of the boat kept interfering with other things he was thinking and while they raked oak leaves from under the rhododendrons, everything he thought was also mingled with the persistent rustling and crackling of the leaves. It was a sound like the lapping of small waves.

  He had put on sneakers, and a pair of khaki trousers from one of his old uniforms, and a white shirt with a frayed collar which Nancy had saved for him for working around the place. It would be torn up for cleaning rags after he had used it once or twice. He and Evelyn raked and Bill packed the leaves into a bushel basket and carried them to a shady place by the side of the garage where they were going to make a compost heap. He had never made one but Nancy had been talking about compost heaps for a long while and this year they would start one. The Martins had a compost heap, Evelyn was saying, and it was wet and soggy and it smelled, but it was meant to be wet and soggy, he told her, and when she asked him what they would do with it after it was made he told Evelyn to ask her mother, who knew about those things. Evelyn was getting old enough so that she ought to learn something about gardening. Lots of people liked it and it was good exercise, and it made no difference that he did not know much about it. He had always been too busy, but when he was Evelyn’s age he had always cleaned up the back yard.

  “Did Aunt Dorothea use to clean it up too?” Evelyn asked.

  Yes, her Aunt Dorothea did sometimes, when he did not do it well enough. Her Aunt Dorothea always liked to have things picked up.

  “You know,” he said, while he raked the leaves, “we might all go up to Clyde this summer. I’ve always been thinking of taking you there. We really ought to get around to it. I don’t see why we shouldn’t just take the Buick and drive up there, if I can get some time off. It might be a new Buick. I’ve got my name down for one.”

  “Never mind about the Buick,” Bill said. “Let’s talk about the boat.”

  “If we went up to Clyde,” he said, “we might go on to the White Mountains. I’ve never seen Mount Washington.”

  Some of his senior class at high school, he was thinking, had taken a trip to Mount Washington once, with Mr. Flanders, the physics teacher, but it had been one of those times when there was not much money and he had not gone with them.

  “Never mind about Mount Washington,” Bill said. “Let’s talk about the boat.”

  “All right,” he said. “It won’t do any harm to talk about it.”

  “If we got it, where would we keep it?”

  “Don’t spill all those leaves,” he said. “We could moor it somewhere. My father was always talking about getting us a boat and a pony but he never did and maybe I won’t either.”

  “Well,” Bill said, “we could get a magazine and look at pictures.”

  Yes, they could look at pictures, and perhaps no one believed entirely in the boat. But then Evelyn was saying that Mr. Swiss had one, with an auxiliary engine. But then he was not Mr. Swiss and he did not want to be Mr. Swiss.

  “You see,” he said, “you can’t be anything very different from what you are.”

  They were all still talking but his attention was wandering. He was thinking about security, a popular word still, even when nothing was secure. The foundation of everything was shaky and yet there were always plans on top of those shaking foundations, pathetic plans, important only to an individual. Nothing was certain. Yet he felt contented and at peace doing nothing but raking leaves on the lawn, he and his two children.

  “Now, listen,” he said, “let’s stop all this about a sailboat. We’ll probably never have one. I don’t know what we’d do with one if we had it.”

  “You said it wouldn’t do any harm to talk about it,” Bill said.

  “It doesn’t matter what you talk about or think about,” he said, “as long as you know what’s real, and it’s pretty hard to learn what’s real and what isn’t. A lot of people never learn.” He rubbed the sleeve of his frayed shirt across his forehead. “This is a pretty tough world, Bill.”

  Bill and Evelyn looked at him with that half-astonished, half-bored expression that always came over children when grownups spoke of the hardness of the world. He could see that they did not believe him and it was just as well. No matter what might happen, all he could do was give them an illusion of security.

  “Why don’t you go in and get a baseball and a mitt, Bill?” he asked. “I’d sort of like to toss a ball around.”

  It was an effort to escape. It reminded him of his father reading Candide aloud—the part about digging in one’s garden.

  “Why is it such a tough world?” Bill asked. “You’re doing pretty well, aren’t you?”

  “Well,” he said, “there’s always room for improvement.”

  Then Nancy opened the side door and called him.

  “Charley,” she called, “you’d better come in now if we’re going to get there on time.” They always got everywhere on time, they both felt the same way about punctuality, but for th
e moment he had completely forgotten about the dinner with Tony Burton.

  Upstairs in their room Nancy pulled at the zipper of her housecoat and looked critically at the long flowered silk dress spread out on the bed, fresh from the cleaners.

  “I suppose she’ll wear a long dress,” she said.

  She was referring, of course, to Mrs. Anthony Burton, and Nancy had the same watchful, determinedly pleasant expression that she always assumed on those semiannual occasions when the Burtons asked them out to Roger’s Point, near Stamford. It was quite different from the expression she assumed when they went to the Merrys’ or when they had dined with the Slades.

  “Nance,” he said, and he put his arm around her.

  “Don’t kiss me,” she said. “You’ll muss my hair and I’ve got on lipstick.”

  “All right,” he said. “All right.”

  “I put your studs in for you,” she said. “It’s your new shirt. I’ve laid out everything.”

  “Well, don’t sound like an undertaker,” he said.

  “I don’t sound like anything,” she said, “but I wish you’d hurry, Charley.”

  Everything was laid out, as she said it was, on the fresh candlewick spread of his twin bed.

  “I don’t see why I should wear a stiff shirt,” he said.

  “Because you’re going to the Burtons’, that’s why,” Nancy said. “He never wears a soft shirt, Charley.”

  “You mean he expects it of me?” he said. Everyone always dressed like Tony Burton.

  It was a small matter and he could not understand why he should have given it another thought but he had pulled open his second bureau drawer. Nancy had her flowered dress over her head but she heard the sound.

  “Charley, what are you doing?” Nancy asked. “Everything’s laid out.”

  No matter what she said, he was going to wear a soft shirt to the Burtons’.

  There was no problem about the children’s supper because Mary was back from Harlem and she would get it. The Buick was by the front door, where they had left it after the trip from the station.

  “I’ll drive,” Nancy said.

  “Let me drive over,” Charles said. “I’d like the kids to remember that their father can drive a car.”

  Bill and Evelyn were standing at the end of the walk. The rhododendrons by the front door were budding and there were small soft dots of yellowish green on the tips of the yews. It was seven o’clock, the right time to be leaving for the Burtons’, with a little leeway in case there should be heavy traffic on the Post Road. He stepped on the self-starter and the engine still sounded smooth and quiet. It was still a good car and it showed how long you could keep a car if you took care of it. People might not be changing cars every other year as they had before the war and this might affect motor stocks if Ford and Chrysler and General Motors ever caught up on their production.

  “Good-by,” he called. “We’ll be back early, I guess.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nancy said. “Evelyn, will you please water the begonias in the dining room, and, Bill, be sure to close the windows if it rains. Mary always forgets.”

  “Is that all?” Charles asked.

  “Yes,” Nancy said, “that’s all,” and she opened her white bead bag to be sure she had not forgotten her lipstick, her compact, and a clean handkerchief.

  They were alone and there was a change in tempo because there was always a slight façade, a different set of manners, when they were with the children. Now they would have to talk about facts, plain contemporary facts. They were on that twisting road with all the driveways. Obviously they were each waiting for the other to speak and neither could wait too long or else the other might think there was a sense of strain.

  “Well, tell me about everything,” Nancy said.

  What he wanted to say to her might have been possible in their room just before she had told him not to kiss her because of lipstick and her hair but it was not possible in the car on their way to the Post Road. Though there was a proper time for everything, opportunities were very rare when he could appropriately say what he really thought without its sounding simple and banal. She was asking him to tell her everything. It was a set speech, like a phrase in a book of etiquette. He wished to God he could tell her everything. At that moment, for example, he wanted to tell her that he loved her. He wanted to tell her that she and the children were all that mattered and that he had wanted to tell her so when he had called her up from Clyde, but it was not the time or place.

  “Charley,” she said, “don’t drive so fast.”

  “All right,” he said. “Nance, we’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we? One damn thing after another.”

  “I always have that feeling after you’ve been driving for a while,” she said. “Aren’t you going to tell me about everything?”

  “Well,” he said, “it was queer going back to Clyde. It was quite an experience.” He paused. They were coming to the intersection with the Post Road.

  “You don’t have to slow down,” Nancy said. “The light’s turning green.”

  “Well,” he said, “anyway Jackie Mason’s got everything,” and he turned left on the Post Road.

  “Who?” she asked. She was evidently thinking of something else and there was no reason why she should not have been because she had nothing to do with Clyde. Nevertheless, it was exasperating when she asked him who.

  “Jackie Mason,” he said. “You know, Jackie Mason.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Of course. Well, what about him?”

  He was passing an oil truck on the Post Road. On the rear of it was a sign in chalk, “If you can read this, you’re too damn close.” He could not look at her but he knew she was looking at him and he could tell from the effort in her voice that she was trying to enter into the spirit of what he was trying to tell her.

  “Well,” he said, “there isn’t much more except that he’s got everything. He’s a director of the Dock Street Savings Bank, and he’s a trustee of the public library and he’s in the Tuesday Club and he’s going to marry Jessica Lovell, but I told you that, didn’t I?”

  “Well,” Nancy said, “you could have done that too. I always told you so.”

  “Well,” he said, “I’m glad I didn’t.” He took his right hand from the wheel and put it over hers.

  “Darling,” she said, “I wish you’d look where you’re going.”

  “All right,” he said, “I’m looking,” and he took his hand away. “But at the same time he hasn’t got anything, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “Who hasn’t got anything?” Nancy asked. She could not keep her mind on anything he was trying to say.

  “Jackie Mason,” he said. “I was telling you, Jackie Mason.”

  “Well, to hell with Jackie Mason,” Nancy said. “There isn’t any reason to shout. He hasn’t made a touchdown. Besides, I thought you said he had everything.”

  “All right,” he said. “Never mind it, Nancy.”

  It was well after seven o’clock and cars on the road were switching on their lights. She moved closer to him and she patted his hand as he held the wheel.

  “I’m sorry, Charley,” she said. “I just can’t concentrate. Let’s stop trying to talk as though we weren’t both thinking about the same thing.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I know.” In just a minute they would have to slow down for Stamford, then right, then left at the first stoplight, and then a right turn at the underpass about a mile beyond.

  “Charley”—her voice was sharper—“what’s the matter?”

  There must have been something in his voice, but then they knew each other too well for either of them to conceal anything.

  “Oh, God,” he said, “I wish everything weren’t so contrived.”

  They were right back where they had been that morning when she had taken him to the station.

  “Contrived?” she repeated. “How do you mean, contrived?”

  “I mean what I say.” He had not inten
ded to sound so bitter. “I mean it’s all so superficial. The bank president and the big job, and what will happen to Junior, and whether a boiled shirt will help. The values of it are childish. It hasn’t any values at all.”

  “I know.” Her voice was softer. “You’ve said it before.”

  “Nance,” he said, “I wish you wouldn’t be so tense. This isn’t as important as all that.”

  “Charley.” She sounded steady and controlled, a great deal too controlled. “Don’t say it. I can’t stand it if you say it.”

  “Don’t say what? What do you think I’m going to say?” he asked.

  “Don’t say—” her voice became harsh and strident—“don’t say we have each other. We have got each other but I don’t want to hear it and you’re just getting ready to say that, aren’t you? It’s been in your mind all afternoon. I knew it when you were out there on the lawn being sweet to the children. Say it later but don’t say it now.”

  “Nance,” he said, and his own voice was edgy, “I’ve done everything I can. Let’s change the subject.”

  “You’re acting licked already,” she said. “I hate it when you act that way.”

  “All right,” he said, “maybe I’m licked, and maybe I don’t give a damn.”

  “I suppose you’re going to say I’ve always been pushing you because I want us to get on,” she said.

  “I wish you’d stop telling me what I’m going to say,” he answered.

  They were through the underpass and now that they were approaching the Sound the places were growing older and larger. Houses with mansard roofs and newer Colonials were standing on broad lawns.

  “You shouldn’t have gone to that damned war.”

  It seemed to him that he was driving too fast and he glanced at the speedometer but the speed was only thirty miles an hour.

  “Yes, you told me so at the time,” he said. “You were right, but at least—”

  “At least what?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s not talk about it now.”

  “Can’t we talk about anything?”

  “No,” he said, “let’s not talk about anything.”

  It had been a long while since his nerves had been so on edge but even so they were almost at Roger’s Point. He could see where the public road ended at a wooden booth where a watchman stood to exclude unwanted visitors. It was like entering a military installation when you went to dinner with the Burtons.