They have eight children, all boys, who all resemble their father and are the terror of the local countryside. People call them the Redheads, without distinguishing one from another, and most of them go around in pairs, because Mrs Dawling almost always has twins.
Those folks form a band, a clan that lives on the outskirts of the community, which allows only poor Mrs Dawling in, as a cleaning lady. She rarely speaks. Her lips are thin, and she looks at everyone with a contemptuous eye. She’s willing to work for hire, but she still has her doubts.
‘Do you think you’ll stay overnight in New York? Do you want me to pack you a suitcase?’
‘No . . . I’ll almost certainly be through before evening . . .’
Her eyes are beginning to irritate me. I no longer know exactly what they mean. It isn’t irony, yet they seem to say:
‘I know you, ha! . . . I know everything. Try as you may, you’ll not hide a thing from me . . .’
On the other hand, there is curiosity as well in her gaze. It’s as if she were constantly speculating about how I will react, what I will do.
She has before her a different man and is perhaps not certain of having explored all his possibilities.
She knows I’m going to New York to see Mona. Didn’t my wife sense, while she was here with us, that I wanted her? Doesn’t she suspect what is going to happen?
She is careful not to show any jealousy. She is the one who advised me, Thursday evening, to call Sutton Place. She is the one, this Sunday evening, who offered to pack my things, as if it were understood that I would spend the night in New York.
Sometimes I wonder if she isn’t pushing me. But why? To keep me from rebelling? To save whatever is still left to save?
She definitely knows that for a week now we have been strangers. Strangers who live together, eat at the same table, undress in front of each other and sleep in the same room. Strangers who talk together as husband and wife.
Would I still be able to make love with her? I don’t think so.
Why? Something broke while I was on the red bench in the barn, smoking cigarettes.
Mona has nothing to do with it, no matter what Isabel believes.
The sky was overcast, Sunday night.
‘I’ll take the train,’ I announced.
I rose at six on Monday morning. The sky was a little clearer, but I thought the air smelled like snow.
‘Do you want me to drive you to the station?’
She took me there in the Chrysler. The Millerton station is a small wooden building where there are never more than three or four people waiting for the train, a train on which all the passengers know one another by sight. I was greeted by our shoemaker, who was also going to the city.
‘Don’t bother waiting, you can go on home. I’ll call to let you know what train I’ll be taking back.’
It did not snow. On the contrary, as we approached New York, the weather cheered up, and the skyscrapers appeared against the purest blue, with a few golden clouds.
I went to have a coffee. It was too soon to go to Mona’s place, and after leaving the station I walked along Park Avenue. I, too, could have lived in the city, had an office in one of those glass buildings, lunched with clients or friends, had a cocktail, my day over, in an intimate and dimly lit bar. We could have, in the evening, gone to the theatre, or dancing in a nightclub . . .
We could have . . .
What was it that Mona had said on that point, exactly? That Ray envied me, that I was the stronger of the two, that I had made my choice wisely! A Ray for whom everything had been a success and who talked about blowing his brains out!
Rubbish!
Were passers-by really looking at me? I always feel as if people are looking at me, as if I had a birthmark in the middle of my face or were wearing something ridiculous. This feeling was so strong that when I was a child, and then a young man, I would stop in front of shop windows to make certain that I looked completely normal.
At 10.30, I hailed a taxi and went to Sutton Place. I knew the building, the orange marquee, the doorman with the gold-laced coat, the lobby with a few leather armchairs and, to the right, the receptionist’s desk.
That man knew me as well.
‘For Mrs Sanders, Mr Dodd? . . . Would you like me to announce you?’
‘Don’t bother, she’s expecting me.’
The elevator boy was wearing white cotton gloves. He took me to the twenty-first floor, and I knew at which of the three mahogany doors I should ring.
Janet came to let me in. She’s a delectable girl in her black silk uniform, with a pretty embroidered apron, and her face is usually sunny.
I suppose she felt she should wear an expression suitable for the occasion, and she murmured something like, ‘Who would ever have believed it . . .’
Relieved of my hat and coat, I was escorted by her into the living room, where I feel almost dizzy every time. It’s a vast place, all white, with two bay windows overlooking the East River. I’d known Ray long enough to be certain that the décor did not reflect his own taste.
This room was defiant. He had wanted it to be rich, modern, astounding. The furniture, the paintings on the wall, the sculptures on their pedestals seemed to have been chosen for a film set rather than a place to live in, and the room’s dimensions precluded any idea of intimacy.
A door opened in a small room called the boudoir, from which Mona called out:
‘Over here, Donald . . .’
I hesitated over whether to bring my briefcase; in the end I left it on the armchair where I’d placed it.
I walked towards her. She was almost ten yards away. She was standing in the doorway, wearing dark-blue. She was waiting, watching me approach.
She let me by without holding out her hand and closed the door behind her.
Only then, face to face, did we look into each other’s eyes, hesitating. I put my hands on her shoulders and began by kissing her on the cheeks, as in Ray’s time. Then, abruptly, without waiting any longer, I crushed her lips with mine, hugging her tightly.
She did not protest, did not stiffen. I saw her eyes staring at me with a certain amazement.
Didn’t she know that would happen? Was she surprised at how quickly it had? Or was it my emotion, my clumsiness that were astonishing her?
My entire being began to tremble. I could not take my mouth from hers, my eyes from hers.
I think that deep down I felt like crying.
The blue garment was a peignoir of very supple silk, and I could feel that there was nothing under it but her.
Had she done this on purpose? Had she not had time to dress because I’d arrived ten minutes early?
I murmured, ‘Mona . . .’
And she said, ‘Come . . .’
We were still in each other’s arms as she led me to a couch, on to which we fell at the same moment.
I literally plunged into her, all of a sudden, violently, almost viciously, and for a second there was fear in her eyes.
When I stood up again, she rose swiftly, retying the belt of her peignoir.
‘Please forgive me, Mona . . .’
‘There is nothing to forgive . . .’
She was smiling at me, still with joy in her eyes but, on her cupid’s-bow lips, a hint of melancholy.
‘I wanted to so much!’
‘I know . . . What can I get you, Donald?’
A small bar was housed in a Louis XV piece. As for the huge bar in the living room, that one didn’t hide away at all.
‘Whatever you’re having . . .’
‘Then it will be Scotch . . . Some ice?’
‘Please . . .’
‘Isabel said nothing?’
‘About what?’
‘About your trip and our meeting . . .’
‘On the contrary . . . She is the one who advised me to call you.’
It was a strange feeling, one I’d never had before. We had just made love savagely and Mona’s face still showed some signs of this. Perhaps
mine did as well?
Yet the moment we both stood up again we were talking like old friends. We were quite at ease, in mind and body. My eyes must have been shining with delight.
‘To us, Donald . . .’
‘To us . . .’
‘She’s an unusual woman . . . I still find her somewhat forbidding . . . It’s true that, for a long time, you scared me a little, too . . .’
‘Me?’
‘That startles you? With most people, you know how to deal with them . . . You quickly discover their weak point . . . You, you don’t have one.’
‘I’ve just proved otherwise to you . . .’
‘You call that a weak point?’
‘Yes, perhaps . . . You know, the night when we slept on the floor, on mattresses, I was hypnotized by your hand, lying on the parquet . . . I had an insane desire to touch it, to seize it. I wonder what would have happened if I had done so . . .’
‘In front of Isabel?’
‘In front of the whole world, if need be . . . You don’t call that a weak point?’
She sat down in an upholstered French armchair and thought for a good while. The peignoir had fallen open over almost all of one thigh, but without bothering either of us. We paid no attention.
‘No,’ she finally announced.
‘I didn’t shock you by my brusqueness?’
‘I admit that I was disconcerted . . .’
We could talk about it without any fuss, without affectation, like old comrades, like accomplices admitting their weaknesses to each other.
‘It had to happen, or we would have spent a ridiculous day thinking of nothing else.’
‘Do you feel a bit of affection for me, Donald?’
‘A lot.’
‘I will need that. I don’t want to play the weeping widow, and anyway, that would be distasteful at this moment. I was very fond of Ray, you know that. We had become a couple of true friends . . .’
I was sitting in front of her; here, too, the bay window looked out over the East River, bathed in sunlight.
‘When I arrived home Thursday, I almost phoned you . . . The apartment seemed ten times bigger than it actually is and I felt lost in it . . . I was pacing around, touching the furniture, objects, as if trying to reassure myself that they were real . . . I began to drink . . . When you phoned me, that evening, could you tell from my voice that I’d been drinking?’
‘I was too keyed up to notice anything. Isabel was watching me . . .’
Mona was watching me as well, silently at first, and then as she said: ‘I will never understand her.’
She was smoking, with a dreamy air.
‘Do you understand her yourself?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think she can suffer, that there must be something that could get to her?’
‘I don’t know, Mona. For seventeen years I’ve never asked myself that question.’
‘And now?’
‘I’ve been pondering it for more than a week.’
‘Doesn’t she scare you a little?’
‘I was used to it . . . I thought it was quite simple . . .’
‘You don’t think so any more?’
‘She watches me live, knows my slightest reactions and doubtless my least little thought . . . She never says a word that might suggest that. She remains quiet and serene.’
‘Even now?’
‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Because she has understood. A woman doesn’t make such mistakes.’
‘Has understood what?’
‘That what just happened would happen sooner or later. You were talking about the night spent on the mattresses. She put you between us on purpose.’
‘So as not to seem jealous?’
‘No . . . For a test . . . It’s even subtler than that, I’d swear . . . To tempt you. To unsettle you.’
I was trying to understand, to see Isabel in this new role.
‘At least twice she arranged to leave us alone together and she knew of my desire to throw myself into your arms . . . I needed comfort, to feel someone solid pressed against me.’
‘I was no help to you.’
‘No . . . At first I thought you were afraid of her . . .’
That’s the wrong word. I have never been afraid of Isabel. Only afraid of hurting her, of disappointing her, of appearing inferior to the idea she had formed of me.
As long as my mother was alive, I was afraid of hurting her, and even now, if I feel uncomfortable in my father’s printing offices, in Torrington, it’s because I wouldn’t want him to sense my pity.
He is just a shadow of his former self, as they say. He digs in, through bravado, publishing his paper that no longer has much readership, no matter what the cost.
He keeps up the ironic front that was his hallmark all his life, but he well knows that some day or other he’ll have to be taken to the hospital, unless he falls dead in his bedroom or his office.
Can I let him see my fears? And see that each time I leave him I wonder if I’ll see him alive again?
Mona checked the time on a small gilt clock.
‘I’d bet that by now she knows exactly what just happened . . .’
She kept coming back to Isabel, who preoccupied her, and I asked myself why.
If it had been anyone else, I would have thought that she was hoping to see me get a divorce in order to marry her. That idea put a small knot in my throat, and I rose to top up the glasses.
‘I didn’t shock you, did I, Donald?’
‘No.’
‘You still love her, right?’
‘No.’
‘But you did love her very much?’
‘I don’t think so.’
She drank her Scotch in smaller sips than the first one, still watching me.
‘I feel like kissing you,’ she murmured finally, as she rose.
I stood up as well. I put one arm around her and, instead of leaning in for a kiss, I put my cheek against hers, staying like that a long time, watching the landscape outside the windows.
I was very sad.
Then that sadness changed into a gentler emotion, in which only a vague bitterness remained.
Leaving my embrace, she said, ‘I’d really better get dressed before lunch . . .’
I watched her move towards what I knew was the bedroom. I was resigning myself to sitting with the paper while waiting for her, and my disappointment must have shown on my face because she added, in a perfectly natural way:
‘If you’d rather come along . . .’
I followed her into the room, where one of the beds was unmade. The door to the bathroom was open, and some water on the tile floor told me she had taken her bath shortly before my arrival. She sat down at the dressing table and began by brushing her hair before applying make-up.
I followed her movements, the light reflected on her skin, with wonderment. I know that we had just made love, but it was almost more precious to be admitted like this into her feminine intimacy.
‘You amuse me, Donald . . .’
‘Why?’
‘One would think this was the first time you’d ever watched a woman at her dressing table.’
‘It is . . .’
‘But Isabel . . .’
‘That’s not the same thing.’
I have rarely seen Isabel sitting at hers, which holds only essential things instead of all the small bottles and jars I saw on Mona’s.
‘You won’t mind lunching here with me? I’ve asked Janet to prepare us a nice little meal.’
I remember two young lions, at the Zoo, who were rolling around gently together with perfect confidence. That was about the feeling I had there with Mona.
When she rose, it was to get some underwear from a wardrobe. She did not hide to take off her peignoir and when naked she was not provocative either. She dressed as naturally as if she had been alone, and I did not miss a single one of her movements, her positions.
Was it still true that I was not in lov
e with her? I think so. I had no thought of living with her, of joining my fate to hers the way I once had with Isabel.
I saw Ray’s untouched bed without discomfort; it evoked no disagreeable image for me.
There were two other bedrooms in the apartment, I knew. I had once slept in the guest room when I had missed my train, and Janet used the other, smaller one, closer to the kitchen.
Strangely, there was no dining room, doubtless because all possible space had been devoted to the living room.
‘Is this all right? I’m not overdressed?’
She had selected a black dress of delicate woollen material, which she had perked up with a belt of silver braid. She must have known that black was becoming to her.
‘You’re perfect, Mona . . .’
‘Later, we’ll have to talk seriously. I can’t imagine what I would do if you weren’t here, with all the problems cropping up . . .’
Janet had set a small table near one of the bay windows, and there was a long-necked bottle of Riesling in an ice bucket.
‘I must move, find a smaller apartment . . . Actually, neither of us liked this one. For Ray, it was all smoke and mirrors, to impress his clients . . . I also think it amused him to invite people over, see a crowd around him, intrigues forming, guests gradually forgetting their dignity . . .’
She looked at me, suddenly serious.
‘By the way, I’ve never seen you drunk, Donald . . .’
‘Yet I was so in your presence: Saturday evening, at the Ashbridges’ party . . .’
‘You were drunk?’
‘You didn’t notice?’
She paused.
‘Not at the time . . .’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know . . . I’m not sure . . . Don’t be angry if I’m mistaken . . . When you returned after going to look for Ray, I thought you seemed . . . different.’
A lobster and some cold meats had been set out on a pedestal table for us to serve ourselves. I’d just felt a rush of blood to my head.
‘It was not inebriation,’ I said.
‘What was it?’
Too bad. My mind was made up.
‘The truth is, I never went to look for Ray. I was too exhausted. I was winded from the storm, with the feeling that at any moment my heart would stop beating. I had no chance of finding him in the darkness, with the snow whipping my face and closing my eyes.
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