Marry Me

by John Updike

‘She seemed such a waif.’

  ‘That’s her pose.’

  ‘No, I never saw her like that before. I felt there were three people with sense there, and we were all debating the fate of this beautiful – child.’

  ‘The toast’s popped. Want to butter it? It’s your toast.’

  He needed to talk about Sally, and the night past, with its intricate transactions; he needed to render the details aloud, and to have Ruth’s light on them. But she went upstairs, refusing discussion. In their cold room, the unexpressed congested his lungs, and his breathing grew tight. ‘Son of a bitch,’ he gasped, ‘my Medihaler’s over at the cottage.’

  ‘Just relax,’ Ruth said, in a far-off, singing voice. ‘Let yourself go, don’t think about anything.’

  ‘It’s cold – up here,’ he said. ‘Why do we live – in such a crummy house?’

  ‘Get under the covers,’ she said, ‘get nice and warm, take easy breaths, don’t think about your lungs.’

  ‘My poor – children,’ he said. The bed, as he climbed into it, seemed a trap in which he would smother face down. Ruth turned off the light, the last light in the house that was burning. Through the window, through the heavy lace of the elm, pierced apertures that were stars slowly readmitted the possibility of his breathing. Ruth got into the other side of the bed and huddled against him, lying with one arm across his chest. Enclosed in slowly growing warmth, warmth he was tasting for the last time in eternity Jerry felt his chest expand; his limbs relaxed and flowered outward; the wall within his lungs, nudged by each inhalation, was crumbling. Ruth’s body against his felt solid, dense, asleep. ‘I’m so sorry’ he said aloud, ‘but it must be right.’ The sentence, wrapped in his voice, seemed to be repeated indefinitely, like images in a doubled mirror, like days, like breathing. He opened his eyes. The crosses of the mullions, rigid benedictions, stood guard against the night; an unbounded kingdom of ease and peace had been established within his lungs. This delicious realm he leisurely began lazily to explore.

  ∗

  The telephone shrilled, and shrilled, in the upstairs hall; it was as if a pipe had burst, filling the dark with a shocking fountain. ‘Oh my god,’ Ruth said.

  She and Jerry had long ago agreed that if she rose with the children in the morning, he would tend to disturbances at night. He pulled his body up from the warm hole where it had found escape; from the strength of the effort he estimated he had not been asleep long. First plunge is deepest. His limbs and face felt coated in dust. He reached the phone by its fourth peal, which he broke in the middle. A child’s bed creaked somewhere. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Jerry? It’s me.’ Sally’s voice sounded impossibly near – a comet that presses from the sky though millions of miles away.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘Kind of. What time is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be able to go to sleep.’

  ‘I didn’t either.’

  ‘I called you at the cottage, but you didn’t answer. I was terribly hurt.’

  ‘You were? It never occurred to me to go there. There’s no point now, it’s all settled.’

  ‘It is? How is Ruth?’

  ‘She’s asleep.’

  ‘I am not!’ Ruth called from the bed. ‘Tell her to get off my telephone!’

  ‘How are you?’ Jerry asked Sally.

  ‘Not so good.’

  ‘Not? Where’s Richard?’

  ‘He’s left. I guess that’s what I called to tell you. Richard’s left the house. He told me he couldn’t stand me another minute and walked out the door. He didn’t even pack a suitcase. He called me a whore.’ Her voice broke, and the receiver rustled with tears. Another bed creaked. Were the children all awake?

  ‘Did he hit you?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t have cared if he had.’

  ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Isn’t it better to have him out of the house? Can you get to sleep?’

  ‘I should roast in Hell for what I’ve done to that man.’

  Jerry shifted his weight to the other leg and tried to speak so Ruth wouldn’t hear every word; these words were ridiculous. ‘Nobody should roast in Hell,’ he whispered to Sally. ‘Least of all you. You didn’t create this, you tried to turn me away. Didn’t you?’

  ‘K-kind of. But I could have worked at it more. I didn’t want to turn you away, and I didn’t want to push you. Will you tell me something?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Tell me honestly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you feel pushed?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I didn’t want to tell him everything, but once I started I couldn’t stop. He made me tell him; he’s more clever than you think.’

  ‘I think he’s very clever. I quite liked him tonight.’

  ‘You did?’ Her voice lifted so hopefully he dreaded her next words; she might say too much. She said, ‘I was awful.’

  ‘No you weren’t. You looked lovely.’

  ‘I couldn’t say anything and when I tried it came out all angry and wrong.’

  ‘That was all right.’

  ‘I was so confused, I was so ashamed. I’d betrayed Richard and then I’d betrayed you to him. And you both expected so much from me.’

  ‘Too much.’

  Her silence rustled again and he felt he was pouring his words into a chasm, a void.

  ‘Sally Listen. I’m glad he knows. I’m glad you told him. Now it’s over, and it’s all right. But we must be better now than other people, you and I. We’ve asked a big thing of Richard and Ruth and the children and the only way we can pay it back is by being better than other people for the rest of our lives. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sniffed.

  ‘Do you believe me?’

  ‘I guess so. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just ate a whole bowl of salad I had made for dinner tonight. We forgot to eat, and now my husband’s gone off hungrys.’

  ‘Can you go to sleep? Do you have a pill?’

  ‘Yes. I have a pill. I’ll be fine.’

  Her voice hinted at anger. He asked, ‘Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘No. It would upset the children. Theodora is still up.’

  ‘Poor kid. When is Josie coming back?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. What can I tell her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing? The truth? That seems to me the least of your worries.’

  ‘You’re right, Jerry. You’re always right. You take care of Ruth, and I’ll take a pill.’

  ‘It’s the best I can think of for now.’

  ‘Go back to sleep. Sorry to have bothered you.’

  He had been waiting for her apology. He said, ‘Don’t be funny. I’m glad you did. Of course I’m glad.’

  ‘Good night, Jerry.’

  ‘Good night. You’re great.’ He could not quite bring himself to say, with Ruth listening, I love you.

  When he got back into bed, Ruth asked, ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Comfort. Richard’s left.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Well – good for him.’

  ‘What’s good about it? Leaving a woman at her wits’ end? What a bastard.’

  ‘What else did she say?’

  ‘She was sore I was here instead of at the cottage. She evidently expected me to dump you off here and go down there.’ Ruth’s ‘good for him’, with its implied criticism of his own passivity, rankled. ‘Should I?’ he asked. ‘Is that the way to win your respect, get up and dress and walk off like Richard?’

  ‘Suit yourself. How did she sound?’

  ‘Miserable, thanks.’

  ‘Why should she? She has what she wants.’

  ‘You think? I think now she wonders what she wants, now that she has it.’

  ‘Say that again.’

  ‘No. I’m going to sleep. I have the strangest sensation,’ he said, indulging the streak of fantas
y that made him valuable to the commercials studio, ‘of being North Africa, with my feet in Egypt and my head in Morocco. I’m all sand.’

  When the telephone awoke him again, he felt guilty that he had dreamed, not of the ‘situation’, not of Sally or Richard or Ruth, but of remote corners of his boyhood, of a playground slide you had to rub wax paper on to get a fast slide, of the two battered box-hockey boxes, of the space of trod grass behind the pavilion shed where the older kids exchanged unimaginable secrets and left Old Gold butts, of the past, that Paradise where choice is no longer possible. He staggered up to stifle the ringing of the telephone knowing that he was repeating himself, that he had condemned himself to an eternity of repetition through the sin that sat leadenly in his stomach. Again it was Sally, Sally: her voice was centrifugal, its utterances fleeing outward in all directions from the humiliating fact of having called him again, her enunciation breathless and scattered. ‘Hey? Jerry? If I ask you something will you tell me honestly?’

  ‘Sure. Did you take your pill?’

  ‘I just did and I wanted to call you before it got to me. I wanted to hear your voice before I went under. Don’t be mad at me?’

  ‘Why should I be mad at you? You make me feel rotten that I’m not there with you. Richard’s not coming back?’

  ‘No, and he won’t be back.’ There was something old-fashioned in how Sally pronounced this, too firm in the consonants, like the neighbourhood women who used to scold him for walking on their front grass.

  ‘Ask me your question,’ he said.

  ‘Are you mad at me for telling?’

  ‘Is that your real question?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘No, I’m not mad, of course not. I told months ago, so you’re way ahead of me.’

  ‘You are mad,’ she said. ‘I thought, from when I called before, you were.’

  ‘I’m a little dead,’ he admitted. ‘I’ll be all right tomorrow. I think you’re very brave, and held it long enough, and I’m very grateful. You’ve given me lots of time. After all, he found those phone bills.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve bluffed worse things than that through. I just had gotten so tired. And Jerry? You know what else? This is really awful.’

  ‘What else, sweet?’

  ‘You’ll hate me.’

  He was tired of saying ‘No’ and said nothing.

  She went on, ‘I lied to him. I told him we never –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I said we never made love in this house. I thought it would be too terrible for his ego. Isn’t that ridiculous?’

  ‘No, it’s not ridiculous.’

  ‘Am I insane?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please don’t tell him. If we all go to court I’ll admit it but please don’t you tell him. It’s not your place, Jerry.’ The pill was making her strange.

  ‘Why should I want to?’ he said. ‘The less I have to talk to him, the better.’

  ‘His ego has been so hurt.’

  ‘Well, that’s the impression he’ll try to give you. Clearly his game now is to make everybody feel as guilty as possible.’

  ‘Promise you won’t tell him?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘There are lots of things I would never tell Ruth. Intimate things.’

  ‘I said, I promise. Can you go to sleep, do you think? What the hell time is it?’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Remember, in Washington, it was you who had the insomnia? I couldn’t see what you were so worried about. Now I know.’

  ‘Life is worrisome,’ he conceded.

  She laughed. ‘I could see your mouth go all prim, saying that. Jerry? I can feel the pill in me now. I feel all heavy.’

  ‘Just relax,’ he told her. ‘You’ll wake up, and it’ll be morning, and the world will still be here.’

  ‘It’s pulling at me. I’m scared. I’m afraid something will happen to the children.’

  ‘Nothing will happen to the children.’

  ‘I’m afraid I won’t wake up. I’ll never see you again, and you’ll make love to somebody else. You’ll fall in love with Ruth again. You do love her, I could see that tonight.’

  ‘You’ll wake up, I promise. You’re very strong, you’re very healthy, you don’t smoke cigarettes.’ He shielded his mouth and whispered so that Ruth could not hear. ‘You’re the sun.’

  ‘I must hang up now, my arm is so heavy. Will I really be safe?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve been in the house alone before.’

  ‘Not like this.’

  ‘You’ll be safe.’

  ‘Good night, love.’

  ‘Good night, Sally.’

  This time, as he crawled back into bed, Ruth only asked, ‘Why does your voice sound so phony when you talk to her?’

  Ruth was up early and in the so strangely inflected sunlight of this Monday Jerry did not feel sanctioned to turn into the centre of the bed and sleep another minute before, as usual, she called him to make the 8.17. He remembered a snatch of a dream. There seemed to be the aftermath of a party, in a kind of huge high-ceilinged hotel room. Sally had fallen asleep on the sofa and, as when this happened with Ruth, Jerry searched for something to cover her with. He found draped on the back of an ornate chair a dirty man’s raincoat with a plaid lining. He tucked it around Sally’s shoulders but her long legs stuck way out; the raincoat was too small. It was a child’s raincoat, tiny. That was all of the dream he remembered. He rose and shaved and went downstairs. The children in pyjamas seemed soft moths bumbling at candles of milk. Joanna greeted him with a sly broad smile that spread her freckles. ‘Daddy slept at home last night,’ she said.

  ‘Daddy always sleeps at home,’ Geoffrey said.

  Charlie reached across a corner of the breakfast table and with a practised hand slapped his brother on the head. ‘He does not. He and Mom fight too much.’

  Geoffrey’s face, caught in a pleased expression, slowly reversed its flow of happiness and was tugged into sobs.

  ‘Charlie, that was not helpful,’ Jerry said. ‘Or especially true.’

  ‘He’s stupid,’ Charlie pleaded.

  Joanna giggled. ‘Charlie always says Geoffrey’s stupid,’ she said. ‘He thinks he’s a big shot.’

  ‘I do not,’ Charlie told his father, his little features edged with a fanatic light. He turned to Joanna and said, ‘You’re the big shot. Joanna thinks she’s a big shot because she has a boyfriend.’

  ‘I do not. Mommy, he’s always saying I have a boyfriend when I don’t. He’s always telling lies. Liar. Big shot. Liar.’

  ‘Jerry talk to them,’ Ruth said, carrying a plateful of buttered toast to the table. ‘Don’t just stand there.’

  ‘He – he – he,’ Geoffrey gasped to his father, ‘hurt my feelings.’

  ‘He was stupid,’ Charlie explained matter-of-factly the evidence incontrovertible, his lips shiny with butter.

  ‘You know what I think this conversation is?’ Jerry asked them all, and answered himself: ‘Acky.’ The children, even Geoffrey, laughed to hear him use a word they had invented. Their faces lifted towards him brightly, ready to be amused further. ‘You know what I’ve decided you all are?’ he asked. ‘I’ve decided you’re all a bunch of – poopheads.’

  They tittered and fluttered. ‘And wee-wee bottoms,’ Charlie added, glancing around quickly to see if he had caught the style, and reassured by the ripple of corrupt mirth that came from the other children.

  Geoffrey, dimpling deeply, brought out, ‘And diarrhoea.’

  ‘And throw-up,’ Joanna chanted, as if inventing a skip-rope song.

  ‘And diddlespit,’ Charlie contributed, producing so much evil glee that Jerry stopped laughing with them, not knowing what diddlespit was and unable to believe his guess.

  ‘Say, I don’t think this is a very nice conversation for breakfast,’ Ruth announced. ‘Joanna and Charlie, you have seven minutes to get dressed for school. Charlie, you’ll have to wear the checked shir
t again, I haven’t had time to iron the white one, I’m sorry.’ Her emphasis forestalled his whine of complaint. ‘Geoffrey take your toast into the TV room. Sit on the floor, I don’t want crumbs between the sofa cushions.’ Ruth and Jerry were then alone in the kitchen. ‘What gets you up so early?’ she asked. It was seven thirty-five; he was wearing an undershirt and the pants of a grey business suit.

  ‘Guilt,’ he answered. ‘Dread. You think I should go to work today?’

  ‘Anything urgent on?’ Ruth asked. She poured the children’s leftover orange juice into a clean glass and gave it to him to drink.

  ‘Not really. Those third-world commercials are winding down, the USIS has been cut back on funds.’ The juice hurt, hitting his stomach together with the realization that today was a different kind of day, that every day henceforth would be different. ‘I guess I better stay here, to field the flak.’

  ‘That would be gracious,’ Ruth said to him. Her face was cautious and stony. She too was just waking up to where they were. ‘There’s a thing I wish you’d do for me.’

  ‘What?’ His heart, behind the times, leaped in gratitude, to hear that he could still serve her.

  ‘Those damn posters I said I’d do for the rummage sale. Before you go off anywhere, could you possibly letter them for me? I told her I’d do five. It would take you ten minutes, and they’d be so much better than any I could make, even if I could get enough of a grip on myself.’

  ‘You seem to have a grip on yourself,’ he accused her.

  ‘I’ve taken a tranquillizer. I figured I couldn’t afford to get drunk, so I found these old pills from when I had the postpartum thing after Geoffrey. I don’t know what’s it doing to me; I feel very detached, and slightly sick.’

  ‘Throw-up, diarrhoea, or wee-wee?’

  ‘That was wild. They smell trouble, don’t they? They could have smashed every dish on the table and I wouldn’t have turned a hair. But please, could you do the posters? I can’t stand thinking about them, it’s just one thing too many.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ll look for the information. I think it’s upstairs with the cardboard I bought. I’ll never agree to do another thing for those Congregational women. Why are they so pushy?’

  ‘Zeal,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I got you into it.’

  Upstairs, Charlie began to yell for his mother, and Ruth, moving through the kitchen with the serenity of the moon navigating clouds, went to his rescue. Jerry crushed some Shredded Wheat into a bowl, poured the milk, and remembered the newspaper; it would still be on the front porch. As he arrived at the front door, the doorbell rang; he opened the door, and there was a man picking up the folded newspaper, the top of his head showing through a tangle of wiry black the approach of baldness. Richard straightened and, his drawn face reddened by the exertion, handed the paper to Jerry. ‘Thanks,’ Jerry said. ‘Come on in. You’re up early.’