Lion House,The

by Marjorie Lee

  CHAPTER TEN

  A whole month went by before I reached the big blow-up with Henry Bradford.

  It happened on a Sunday evening after dinner. We had nothing to do because the Brownes were at the Weinrick's, along with the Deitzes and Perloffs. "She's well enough physically," I was saying to Brad, "but she's so damned quiet most of the time. She hasn't mentioned that Church business again, but I think it's really eating into her. You never know with her: there's so much going on inside you can't even begin to sort it all out..."

  "Who are you?" he asked. "Her psychoanalyst?"

  "Her friend."

  "If you're her friend, quit trying to dissect her. German measles—a kid's disease; and everybody acts like Hiroshima or something."

  "German measles," I said, "but under the circumstances, a rather cruel blow of fate, I'd say."

  "Yeah?" He let out a long sigh. "Well, maybe. But you know what? It's an ill fate that blows nobody good."

  "What do you mean?"

  He sighed again. "Jo, old girl," he said, "ever since the day I met you you've been making me feel like an A-One Nothing. But the fact is: you're stupider than anybody."

  "That's not true," I argued. "I don't feel that way about you, and I can't see why you have to keep feeling that way about yourself! There have been times for us when—well, you know what times. Nobody's had it the way we've had it, Brad; just nobody. You know how it's—"

  "Sex," he said nodding. "You do things great with sex, Jo; but even then—you're on top."

  "Can the Male Chauvinism," I told him. "What difference does it make who's where and how as long as it works the way it does?"

  "Ever hear of levels?" he asked. "You must've heard of levels before. Your little friend Frannie is very hot on what level a thing seems, or means, or is. Well, I think if a thing works all right, maybe that's one level, and it's fine. But you know something? I've got a feeling there're some other levels around, and those little levels may not be working at all..."

  "Listen," I said, "please don't start giving me that bull. I get more than enough of it from Frannie."

  "You think it's bull?"

  "On a couch," I said, "where you're paying for it, with a trained person behind you who knows what it's all about? No: there it isn't bull. But with Frannie who'd part with her right arm before she'd learn it the real way? Yes: the kind of thing Frannie throws around free, for the fun of it—is bull!" I was expecting a debate: a Brad-type debate in which I'd wind up flailing at vague, bodiless clouds. But this time I didn't get one. This time he said, "Okay by me." And the silence, somehow, was harder to take than the noise.

  We sat there for a while, trying to drink ourselves out of it. And then I thought of Frannie and the things she had tried to tell me in the hospital while she was still doped up and could barely get the words out. "What did you mean," I asked Brad suddenly, "about my being—stupid?"

  "It was fate all right," he muttered. "That little job that doctor did on her might just have been the luckiest thing that ever happened."

  "Why?"

  He drained his glass. "Because," he said blurrily, "all things considered, and all things—well, considered—it might just've been—and mind you, I say might just've been—that we'd never have known... whose it was."

  "You mean, then," I said, with a new, incredible, and terrible calm, "that it hasn't been 'all over' after all. You mean that in believing it would 'never happen again' I've been wrong. You mean also, too, along with that—it's not for peanuts anymore. Now, you mean to tell me, it is all and everything..."

  "Once," he said. "Only once; and even then it was—well, there's no point in going into that..."

  "Go into it," I told him.

  "No," he said. "It's details. You always make me feel bad when I give you—details."

  It's funny how it is when you decide a thing is finished. It’s funny how a decision isn't a decision all by itself, separate, or sudden; how now is always built on then; and how nothing ever exists without holding, right there inside of it, making it whole, the thousand other things which existed before it. So—why did I decide that night? I didn't. That night was simply the point in time when all those other times cohered and made the whole. And I was calm, because that too comes with decisions. It's only the piling-up and the moving-towards which causes all the clamor. The actual decision hardly makes a sound.

  I didn't go to bed that night. I waited till Brad had; and then I went up and looked through everything I owned. Finally I packed a sweater and skirt; some blouses; a sequined dirndl and the top that went with it; a week's worth of underwear; and some other things—things I didn't really need but couldn't bear to leave behind: a clay turtle a little girl at Wingo had made for me; the white cigarette cup Frannie had given me for Christmas; and the framed snapshot of my father.

  By the time I was finished the sun was out. Brad was still asleep and I was glad he was: I wouldn't have to talk to him; or listen to the protestations I'd heard so many times before; or see him cry; or cry myself. I could just stand beside the bed with its sheet and blanket kicked aside and look at him, sprawled out and smooth-skinned like something from the sea: not human, or even animal—but a giant sleeping plant which, with its beauty alone, could lure its victims to destruction.

  "Goodbye," I whispered; and after all those years of hate and love, and hope and hate, and love and hate and hope again—it seemed that simple.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I drove off slowly, not wanting to wake him with a bumping exit down the unpaved driveway; and I kept on carefully even after I'd come to the road. Reaching a village, I stopped at an early-opened drugstore for a cup of coffee and broke my only five-dollar bill. Where could anybody go on four eighty-five? I would have to borrow; but from whom? I don't know how or why I thought of Frannie; though, actually, it wasn't so strange: there was no one else.

  * * *

  The house was quiet. Marc and the kids had left; and Frannie, per usual, was back in bed sleeping away another morning. I stumbled up the stairs, hitting my elbow a nasty crack on the banister. I stood outside her door a minute, rubbing my arm, trying to catch my breath. Then, without knocking, I whammed it open.

  She shot up like a spring. "Jo! What is it?" She had slept naked and she pulled the sheet up and held it over her breasts, staring at me, bewildered. Then she bent down and fished her glasses out from underneath the bed. "What is it?" she asked again. "What's happened?"

  They used two double beds. I walked past hers and threw myself across Marc's, face down. We were quiet for a second. Then I raised up on my elbow and peered at her. She was soft in the dim light that came through the draperies, drawn always against the morning sun. I saw the sweep of her neck, her shoulders, and the curve of her breasts where the sheet began. She seemed so young: ten years younger than she was; eons younger than I. And small: very small in the big, big bed; small enough to be lifted, carried, buffeted, blown away. But it was the look of innocence that got me: oh, how innocent she seemed; innocent of all things, but mostly, of herself. What right has she to be this way? I thought, senselessly, foolishly, wanting to scream. What right has she, at this ugly moment, to be beautiful?

  All touch with control was drowned in a wash of envy; or impotence. "I know the whole damned thing," I told her raggedly. "I know what's gone on; and I know why you betrayed that holy God of yours and let them take the baby!"

  I heard the intake of breath; and the long sigh, "You're right about the first thing, Jo. But you're dead wrong about the second. If he let you believe it, about the baby, he was only hurting you more than he had to."

  "You'd never know!" I said. "How could you ever be sure?"

  "I'm sure all right. There was a thing, Jo; but not what you think. Don't make me talk about it; please don't; I can't. Just believe me; will you please believe me?"

  "Believe you!" I said. "I may be dumb, Frannie. But not that dumb. Why should I ever believe you again?"

  "No reason," she answered. "No reas
on in the world that I can think of, except—"

  "Except what?" My voice was rising; I couldn't seem to keep it down.

  "Except that—Oh, God, how can I tell you? It's too insane..."

  I got up and came around to her side of the room. I stood there beside her bed, towering over her. I wanted to rip the sheet off and beat her. But I couldn't.

  She turned her head away and hugged the sheet even closer. "Except that I love you," she said simply.

  I began to laugh.

  "I know," she went on. "It doesn't make sense. It never has, right from the beginning. It's so crazy: how can you do a thing like that to somebody you love? It's weird, Jo; it's scary. You'd think I didn't love you at all. You'd think... I hated you..."

  I kept on laughing; and then suddenly I knew I wasn't laughing: I was crying. I was crying so hard I couldn't stop. There were sobs I'd never heard before breaking out around my fist against my teeth. I couldn't stand up anymore and I fell across the foot of her bed and tried to hold it back, biting the fist, but it wouldn't work.

  She got up then, the sheet still swathed around her, took some shorts and a shirt that lay heaped on a chair, and went out of the room.

  I must have stayed there an hour. When finally I got downstairs I found her dressed and washed and freshly lipsticked, sitting at her desk in front of her typewriter. But there wasn't any paper in it. There hadn't been any paper in it since the Fall. "I guess you can begin now," I said. "That crazy little novel you once talked about; that crazy plot you were waiting for? You've got it now, haven't you?" I wasn't crying anymore. My voice was flat and feelingless.

  She smiled, ruefully, and shook her head. "Not yet," she answered. "Not quite yet..." Then, quickly, she got up. "I made some breakfast," she said. "You know my cooking—but it's better than nothing..."

  She was gone awhile. When she came back she was carrying a tray. Besides coffee for both of us she had I made scrambled eggs and buttered toast. There were sprigs of parsley stuck into the center of the eggs and a little moss-green bowl filled with orange marmalade. "I hate marmalade," she said, "but I love the color."

  The coffee tasted like dishwater, and the eggs needed seasoning. "You're a lousy cook," I said, "but you have a way of making things look pretty..."

  I was still there that afternoon when the kids came home; and there at six when Marc arrived. I don't know how or when it was decided that I would stay (I had, after all, only come to borrow some money), but it was something both Frannie and I seemed to know and accept. I couldn't borrow indefinitely; nor could I have swung a hotel bill on my salary. Besides, I wanted less than anything to be alone.

  When Marc came in Frannie told him I was going to be there for a while. He stood in the den for a few minutes, not saying anything. But his withdrawnness was not new. There had always been that reserve in his manner, the restraint, the not wanting to be part of things. While Frannie might set the world on fire at any given moment, or plunge it into utter darkness with as little effort, Marc was the Cool, the Constant, the Collector of the Pieces.

  "Where?" he asked finally. "I hardly think we're set up for long-term guests."

  "Oh, not long-term," she told him. "Just till things get settled—or blow over," she added hopefully. "We'll clean out the maid's room; hang pictures and stuff... Jo, you pick a couple of pictures you'd like."

  "Spare me the Rouault, if you don't mind," Marc said. But, again, his resistance to the spirit Frannie had just shown was—well, was Marc; and so: unhurtful.

  I chose one from the breakfast room: orange free squares on a white background, painted by Blair in nursery school some years before. And Frannie gathered some white and yellow flowers from outside and put them in a vase on my bedtable.

  There was a moment, after dinner, when I felt I had better go. I was in the den picking up glasses and ashtrays and I could hear them talking in the kitchen: "...left him because of you..." Marc was saying, "...and living here strikes me as sheer insanity!"

  He knew, then. Either he had been told, or he knew instinctively.

  "... nowhere else to go," Frannie insisted. "And anyway, it's just a month or so; we leave for Bermuda when school ends."

  "Nowhere else to go, hell," was Marc's rejoinder. "Stop kidding yourself. She wants to stay and you want her to stay and nowhere else to go has nothing to do with it!" But then: "All right: you play it your way. But just remember: I live here too and I'm not going to put up with any of your—"

  I coughed before I went in. The conversation stopped like a snapped-off radio. "Look," I began, "I think I ought to leave—"

  "Don't be an idiot," Frannie said.

  "No, really. There's the food and everything, and—"

  "What would you like to do? Stick a quarter a day in the meter or something?"

  "Be serious, Frannie. It isn't only the room and board. It's the trouble. You don't even have a steady maid."

  "If I don't have a maid it's my problem," she said. "You know we could afford a whole retinue if we wanted it. I don't have a full-time maid because I can't stand having them around, breathing down my neck. I know; I've tried. The last one wound up thinking she was my mother!”

  She was standing beside me at that point, with Marc across from us. I sensed for a second that our positions might be symbolic; that sides were being taken. Yet I didn't, and don't, believe that all of life must be broken down to fit the honey-comb of unconscious motivation; so I put the thought from my mind. "All right," I said. "But the booze is going to be on me. And the butts. And anything else I happen to notice you can use around here."

  "Okay," she agreed. "But only because it will make you feel better."

  That first night at the Brownes' was one of the hardest—though there were to be worse ones before our month was over. Marc was tired, and, for some reason, insisted that Frannie go up with him. He said, lightly enough, that he couldn't stand female klatches and that we'd have lots of time for cahootzing when he wasn't around.

  I stayed downstairs for a while, drinking to keep from thinking. But I thought anyway. And mixed with the dread of the failure and loneliness I might eventually have to face there was a kind of elation. Because now, at long last, I was about to scrap the past and start over. I'd go back to school the next day and continue till the end of the term. In my free time I'd find an apartment for when Frannie and Marc and the kids went to Bermuda; and I'd haunt the agencies in town for a summer job with decent pay. I'd had a variety of experiences: Wingo, secretary, training squad in a department store, even a slight tussle with hospital work in the old days. There was no doubt that I could land something.

  I poured another drink, and for twenty minutes or so I was absolutely happy.

  When I got upstairs the kids were asleep and I went into their rooms to look at them. They were so beautiful, all three of them, each in his own way: Stuart—the biggest, already broken from the confines of the family to a point of relying on a place within himself; yet, in sleep the traces of small-boy vulnerability on his face; a look of needs as yet unfilled; because Stu had been the first to come and his row had been hardest. Petey—flung carelessly on the bed beside Stu's, with the half-smile of less complicated dreams. And in another room, papered with rosebuds and billowing with organdy—Blair. I stayed with her longer than with the others, taking in her delicate, up-turned nose, her hair streaked blonde like Frannie's, but straighter and softer in its sleep-loosened pony tail. And looking at her, I thought: she might have been mine.

  When I left her there was silence behind Frannie's and Marc's door, and no light showing through at the threshold.

  I went to my own small room down the hall and hung my unpacked things away. It won't be bad, I told myself. It's nice here. I emptied a fresh pack of cigarettes into the white cup Frannie had given me and set it on the table beside the snapshot of my father. She'd forgotten an ashtray, but I didn't want to go downstairs again so I used the soap dish from the john.

  I lay in bed awhile, smoking and starin
g at the ceiling. But repeatedly my glance swept sideways to the snapshot. Like a child alone with an image or a picture in a story book, I spoke to it inside myself: I'm here, I said. No, not with Brad; just me. It had to be this way. I think you must have known it years ago: perhaps, the week before I married him... Did you hear about Mother? She wasn't alone for long. No one we ever knew: a banker from Detroit. Yes. I had a letter, ages ago. I can't remember if I answered. If I did it was probably about the weather or a dress I'd bought. It was always like that. We were never able to say anything that mattered. I don't think she ever got used to having me: such a brash child for such a quiet little woman to have borne...

  His thin, leaning height touched me; and the sad, gray depths of his eyes. I had always loved his face. Its fragile unsmilingness had not seemed sad to me in those days; only filled with understanding. Whatever there had been in it of its own weak end I had overlooked, putting there instead the thing I wanted most for him to give me.

  Lying there then, I remembered things about him, times I'd had with him that I hadn't thought of for years: a beach scene when I was twelve. He'd carried me to the water on his shoulders. Don't, my mother cautioned. She's too heavy; you'll hurt yourself. (She sat on a blanket on the sand, in the shade of a yellow and green umbrella, with a robe across her lap to protect her from the wind.) Don't, she said again. But he walked off with me, bending slightly under my weight, not listening. Just before we reached the water, he fell. I landed on a shell and cut my cheek. It grew together, but the scar stayed.

  And then there was the time, much later, during my first vacation from college. I'd been out on a date, dancing, and drinking something home-distilled. After that we'd driven off somewhere and parked the car. I didn't get home till three. I took my shoes off to creep upstairs, but when I passed the diningroom he heard me. He was in there, reading. He looked up. He didn't ask me to stop or stay; but I had to. I walked in to him, carrying my shoes like a fool, and stood there. There wasn't any need to explain. He knew those things about me without having to be told; and he accepted them. Still: I'm sorry, I said inanely. I hope you didn't worry...