The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan: Volume One

by Morley Callaghan

  “I heard you stumbling up the path,” Jean said to him.

  In the car Jean leaned against his shoulder, following the glare of the headlight on the dirt road ahead, sloping down from the top of the hill and cutting through small recurring mounds. The light shone on the yellow surface sand, and the car bumped over the rounded rocks jutting out of the road. Beddoes gave her a drink of the whiskey and feeling more cheerful, she began to hum softly and he thought suddenly that they might still have a good time together.

  Hardly anyone was on the dimly lighted town streets; all the stores were closed, though the dance hall over the billiard parlor would be open until midnight, so he drove along the main street and heard the music of a jazz orchestra coming down from the lighted hall. Now they were laughing a little foolishly, feeling there was something quaint in the notion of going upstairs to dance over a town poolroom, late in the evening, and were able to detach the eagerness for amusement from any feeling prompting them to come into town. Before they got out of the car he gave her another drink.

  Only ten or twelve people were on the dance floor, town folk, who quickly lost interest in dancing when Beddoes and Jean moved on the floor. The young fellows with well-shaved faces, heavy shoes and bright neckties were all looking at Jean, who hardly noticed them at all. Even the awkward girls, heavily powdered and rouged, and sloppily dressed, were gawking because Jean’s face was flushed and a tuft of gray hair curled out from under the felt hat.

  But it was an easy, careless dance they had together, as though they had been looking forward to it all evening, laughing gaily, unaware of the rough men who, smirking, resented them and made faces at Beddoes whenever he passed. They knew he was the city man who lived in the cabin by the lake and did nothing at all to earn a living.

  After dancing an hour they had to go out to the car for the ride home. Suddenly they had nothing at all to say to each other, both feeling the necessity of going through with something that didn’t appeal to them at all.

  “Could I have another drink?” she said, when the car was moving again.

  “Take a good stiff one and forget all about it,” he said.

  She drank too eagerly, and lay back, closing her eyes. She might have been a little drunk for whenever the car lurched and she was tossed against his shoulder she didn’t open her eyes at all. The weight of her soft body fell against his shoulder and remained there till the car lurched again, tossing her back to the corner of the seat. It was necessary to drive very slowly along the rough road late at night; rocks jutted out of the surface of the earth. The headlight, swinging as the car sunk down in a wheelgroove, shone on the underside of curled-up leaves of tall weeds. There was only the rim of a little moon behind a heavy bank of clouds and the wind was much stronger. The back of the curled-up leaves was a grayish green in the strong headlight. On the edge of a hill were only a few tall trees; short thin clumps of young trees low on the skyline.

  “It’s all the country was ever good for around here — timber,” he said, to try and make conversation. “But they cut it down before it gets a chance to grow.”

  “Are there no good farms?” she said faintly, without looking at him.

  “One further back there over the hill. A frugal fellow has made a good farm out of it and actually makes money. That’s the only one I know.”

  Then he saw that she was crying and stopped the car.

  “Oh for God’s sake,” he said. “Look here, we’re simply not going on with this, do you hear? It’s ridiculous to go on with it.”

  “No it’s not. It’s no more ridiculous than any submission to a point of honor. It’s the submission that hurts.”

  “I’m not going to do it.”

  “We must now. I wish you wouldn’t take me too seriously. I don’t know why I’m behaving so emotionally, but don’t treat me like a child. I’ve no objection at all to sleeping with you.”

  “I’m not doing it. I’m withdrawing.”

  “Please, please, say you’ll do it, or you’ll make me feel even more ashamed of myself.”

  “But it’s idiotic. Why are you crying then? It’s too fine a night for such a hard feeling.”

  “Please say you’ll do it.”

  “All right, we will. I want to, anyway.”

  So he started the car again, puzzled by his own thoughts, wondering what extraordinary notion of honor had become so important to her. Two or three times he shook his head resentfully. All the rest of the way home they hardly spoke at all. Sometimes he heard her crying quietly, and suddenly hoped she really might be a little drunk and would fall asleep as soon as they got home.

  “I’m a fool,” he muttered.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing at all,” he said, for he could not say it had occurred to him that he was just as ridiculous as she, subscribing to the same notion of honor. They passed Scott’s cottage by the road. No lights were in the windows. The cottage was deserted and desolate and by the trees a dog howled and bounded over to the fence, barking loudly.

  “The dog howls sometimes at night,” he said, “and we hear it down by the cabin.”

  At the garage she sat in the car while he swung open the doors. He drove the car in; the lights shone full against the boards and reflected back to her face, as she tried wearily to smile, getting down from the car. Her small felt hat was tilted over on one side of her head.

  Slowly, arm in arm, they walked down through the trees, for she had on high-heeled shoes and was afraid of stumbling over roots stretching tightly across the path. Ahead was the dark outline of the cabin roof, and further out, there suddenly, a strip of moonlit water on the lake.

  “I wonder if your wife will be waiting for us,” she said suddenly. “I wonder what she has been thinking of while we’ve been away.”

  “She’ll be waiting and not bothered at all. A few years ago she might have been disturbed. Now she has a poise that makes many experiences seem small and trifling.”

  “Do you love her very much?”

  “We’re necessary to each other. Between the two of us we’ve got hold of something, that’s all.”

  They were halfway down the hill when Beddoes said to her, “Jean you’re a lovely, gorgeous woman. You’re lovelier in the nighttime even than you are in the sunlight.”

  “Don’t start that, please.”

  “Clown a little for me.”

  “But I’m doing it — oh hell, what’s the use, I don’t feel like it.”

  They were really entirely miserable, walking slowly, reluctantly approaching the cottage, for he was ashamed of his own notion of the obligation, and certain that he was appearing ridiculous. No longer could he think of her as an adventurous woman who had left her husband and had had many lovers, for she was depressed and terrified by a virginal shyness that made him feel ashamed. Leaning on his arm, she held on to him, seeking a protection, revealing a sincere virginal temper which merely aroused him to a new point of passion.

  “Look back at the outline of the hill,” he said. “On that hill, according to local tradition, the Algonquins made their last stand against the Iroquois from further south. They were beaten though.” And for a few paces on the path they thought of the last days of the Algonquin trappers and fishermen who had been driven out of rich territory.

  Inside, Mrs. Beddoes, in a dressing gown and her hair piled on top of her head, was waiting for them. Her face was absolutely calm and she smiled very practically. Beddoes resented her too cool acceptance of the circumstances.

  “Oh my poor dears,” she said. “What has happened to you? Jean can hardly walk and smells of liquor and you both look as though you’d been crying all night.”

  “It’s simply absurd,” Beddoes said, glancing at Jean.

  “But it’s not absurd at all,” Jean said, suddenly smiling. “Of course, if you both object . . . ”

  “Now Jean,” Mrs. Beddoes said, putting her arm around her, explaining casually, leading her out of the room, that she ought to lie down a
nd go to sleep.

  As soon as they were alone together Mr. and Mrs. Beddoes went to speak, hesitated several times and suddenly threw their arms around each other, at the moment sharing all the surprising emotions they had felt in the evening. Mrs. Beddoes was trembling a little. Then they began to talk sensibly, looking calmly at each other, though an excitement stronger than any they had experienced in years had almost exhausted them.

  “What ought I to do, tell me, Teresa?”

  “Good heavens, you poor man, try not to make it a tragic matter. Between the three of us, at least between you and me, there is something superior to any excitement you can get out of it. Besides I don’t disapprove at all. I—”

  “I mean, what shall I do?”

  “In an hour’s time we’ll go to bed. You go into her room. Perhaps she’ll be asleep. If it amuses her, entertain her to the best of your ability.”

  “But I can’t understand the point of honor. What is she defending?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. It’s almost an incentive to find out.”

  “But how are you affected?”

  “Not at all,” she said quickly, and he was a little ashamed.

  In less than half an hour, in his pyjamas, he went to Jean’s bedroom, opening the door slowly, half hoping she would be asleep and yet astonished that he was physically ready to make love to her. The oil lamp was burning on the table at the head of the bed and the yellow rays fell on her short dark hair and bare rounded shoulders and arm lying over the edge of the bed. The bedclothes were only half pulled up, as though she had got undressed to lie down on the covers and had tried to pull them over her afterwards. Her night-dress, pulled up around her shoulders, was in folds over her breasts. She was wide awake and even smiled at him, shaking her head a little stupidly. During the short walk down the hillside, after they had got out of the car, both aware of sharing the one feeling, they had been drawn closer together, a kind of intimacy for them, which he now felt vaguely would be destroyed as soon as there was a physical contact. It was a simple feeling of friendship he had wanted to preserve.

  “We’ll be formal about it,” he said, feeling very silly. “Shall I salute or simply get into bed with you?”

  But she had a hold of herself and nodded her head, smiling slightly as he stepped out of his pyjamas to lie down beside her and caress her, feeling the warmth of his own feeling overcoming any reluctance, and delighted that he heard no protest from her while his hands moved on her body. All this time her eyes were closed. There was no movement in her body. There wasn’t a solitary moment when he felt that they were close together, sharing a common passion. She was simply holding on to herself. They did not try to find any words.

  Then he held her down, ready to find a climax of satisfaction and she began to tremble all over, so that he drew away from her, startled, feeling so much emotion in her. Approaching her again, he knew she was trembling even more, but her lips were held tightly. She began to cry, holding her lip with her teeth.

  “This is too savage, it’s degrading,” he said, trying to draw away, but this time she held on to him, muttering quickly, “Oh please, get it over with.”

  She was almost hysterical but he held on to her long enough to bring on a quick small culmination. He lay beside her, more ashamed than before and then annoyed because she went on trembling, the feeling of revulsion in her becoming a kind of hysteria. He thought he had never seen a woman so aware of her own degradation. Twice he tried to comfort her but now she would not have him touch her at all.

  “I’ll go get Teresa,” he said, getting out of bed.

  Her head, turned to the pillow, did not move.

  Beddoes said to his wife, who was sitting alert and attentive in her own room, her head held birdlike on one side, “Please go in to her, Teresa. She’s half hysterical. Comfort her. Do something for her. Try and get her to go to sleep. It’s absurd, I tell you.”

  Mrs. Beddoes, now trembling with excitement, walked up and down the room several times in her nightgown, a plain white silk nightgown hanging neatly on her thin hard little body. “It’s extraordinary,” she said. “Extraordinary.” Then she put her arm around her husband’s shoulder and kissed him several times as though he badly needed comforting, and hurried into Jean’s bedroom.

  Beddoes followed as far as the door, watching his wife kneel down at the head of the bed, stroking Jean’s head with her small palm and finally, throwing both arms around her, holding her head tightly against her breasts and muttering small sounds he could not hear. The sounds soothed Jean who suddenly opened her arms and held Teresa, who lay down beside her, beckoning her husband to leave them alone.

  In his bedroom he was alone with his thoughts without any feeling of satisfaction, only uneasiness and restlessness. And he went to the window furthest from the lake, looking out at the path up the hill, trying to define straight elm trunks against the shadows on the hill. The smell of earth and of dead leaves came to him, and a wind getting stronger all the time blew over the hill, and on the other side of the house the water lapped sharply on the beach. There were no stars or lights in the land and looking out the lake window at the blackness of the water extending to the more impenetrable blackness of the rock’s face in the night, was terrifying, for the skyline could not be seen from the window. Beddoes felt more uneasy, more confused than he had in years, unable to regain the feeling of isolation. He was running his hands through his thin black hair when his wife came into the room, two hours later.

  Teresa began to whisper softly, standing there in her nightgown, her cheeks flushed with excitement, her eyes very bright.

  “I thought I ought to come back here and tell you about it,” she said. “It’s amusing, but it’s seriously interesting.”

  “What was the matter with Jean? How can it be amusing?”

  “She’s so lovely, so gentle in her own nature, it’s hard to help loving her. And here she’s come to this hard bright lake and its rocks and now so unhappy.”

  “She’s too softly feminine for this sterile country.”

  “Wait, I’ll tell you. She left her husband, do you remember, when we thought she had gone with another man and thought it so generous of him not to divorce her?”

  “Is that what she was telling you just now?”

  “She was hysterical and bewildered and talked incoherently. She went away, not with another man, but with a young woman she had met in another city. She loved the young woman. Now she can hardly stand to be touched by a man. She feels she can’t stand a man touching her.”

  “But why would she want to hurt herself?”

  “She knew you simply thought of her as a woman, and she’s a genuine honest gambler and had offered herself for what she was — a woman. But I promised to return to her. I promised to stay with her the rest of the night.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Beddoes, staring at each other and hardly able to find words, were a little bewildered from the strong excitement of a new emotion. Her hands were folded at her throat and, leaning forward, she moistened her lips nervously. Putting her fingers over her lips, she tiptoed back to Jean’s room.

  It was hard for him to sleep with the waves lapping loudly on the beach and he was thinking only of the way Jean had thrown her arms around Teresa to find a satisfying comfort.

  In the morning he slept late and his wife called him to come and have breakfast. He was dressing when she came into his room and told him practically that Jean was determined to go back to the city on the first train. Beddoes agreed it would be intolerable for her, staying a week longer at the cabin. Teresa added that it would be better if she, herself, drove Jean into town, so there wouldn’t be any unnecessary emotion at the station, and he knew he was expected to applaud this nice feeling for him.

  At breakfast he thought of watching Jean furtively, hardly expecting her to speak at all. But she was agreeable and charming, almost happily good-natured, talking easily and naturally. She was a lovely woman, he thought, and regretted she was unable to sta
y with them in the cottage for the rest of the summer.

  When the car went down the road, Teresa driving competently, he waved his arm without any cheerfulness. They were going into town together and neither one had wanted him to be there too. All the rest of the morning he wandered on the beach.

  At noontime he heard the automobile on the top of the hill and looking up saw a man waving to him, and wondered vaguely if he had really expected Teresa to drive back alone. The fellow, a town man in a blue shirt and velveteen trousers, handed him an envelope, and he read in Teresa’s handwriting that she had never known how much she had loved Jean and could not come back for a long time.

  So he walked down the path through the trees on the slope of the hill. So accustomed was he to a steady calmness that he walked very slowly toward the cabin, shaking his head. The sun was shining brilliantly on the smooth lake, lighting up the desolate face of the big solid rock. Further around the lake the sun was just touching the top of the hill of the dark tall first-growth pines, the best in the whole country.

  The Fugitive

  At midnight Wallace was in his room in Mrs. Cosentino’s house on Walmer Road making himself a cup of coffee when he heard a soft furtive knock on the door. He was startled because he hadn’t heard anyone on the stairs. When he opened the door, Anderson came in and closed the door quickly and stood there with his winter coat collar turned up high around his ears, smiling with relief. “Quite a climb up those stairs,” he said.

  He leaned against the door getting his breath, and then, as his big brown eyes shifted around the room, he stood on the balls of his feet as if he were apt to disappear as quickly as he had come. But when he saw that Wallace was glad to see him, he grinned and took off his hat. His hair had gone far back on his forehead and was white at the temples.