The Girl Who Passed for Normal

by Hugh Fleetwood

  “Nothing at all while I’ve been away?” Barbara said.

  “I’ve done some exercises. But I haven’t danced. Not to music. And exercises —” she stopped, and looked dazed. She had forgotten what she was going to say.

  “What about David, Catherine?” Barbara said softly.

  The girl looked up at her as if she had said something shocking; then she looked away and said in a loud flat voice, “I can’t tell you now, mother’s listening.”

  “She’s gone out,” Barbara said.

  Catherine shook her head fiercely. “No. She’s listening at the door there.” She pointed at the door to the hall.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Barbara said. “You know she’s not.”

  Catherine smiled at the wall and repeated, “She’s listening at the door there.”

  Barbara wondered whether she should plead with the girl, but it seemed useless. “Will you tell me before I go?”

  Catherine nodded firmly. “Oh, yes.”

  Barbara looked at the door behind which Mary Emerson was supposed to be hiding, and considered going over to it to prove Catherine was mistaken. She rejected the idea. She didn’t want to hurt or antagonize the girl in any way; and besides she was terrified that Catherine might be right. The thought of finding Mary Emerson in the position in which she had first seen Catherine was, to say the least, disturbing.

  Barbara picked out a tape, pushed back the white rugs, started the music, and the lesson began. She heard a deep Southern laugh from the hall, and thought of the black myna bird sitting out there in his white cage.

  *

  They had been working for about a half hour when the door opened and Mary Emerson peered around it. “I’m back sooner than I thought‚” she said. “Barbara, my dear, could you come and talk to me for five minutes? Catherine, sit down and wait.” She pointed at the sofa with a heavily ringed hand, and then smiled at Barbara. “Come, my dear.”

  They went into the dining room, and Mary Emerson closed the door behind her. “Now I know this isn’t a very good time, but —” she paused. “By the way, how is your mother?”

  “Much better. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought at the beginning.”

  “That’s good. Anyway — what I want to say is that for various reasons I’m going to America in about six weeks’ time. One thing is that it’s my son’s twenty-first birthday.”

  Barbara stared at her. “Then they’re twins? Catherine never told me. She always just said ‘my brother.’”

  “Has she spoken about him to you?”

  “Only once or twice. I sort of felt that she didn’t want to.”

  “He’s been over here, you know. Almost all the time you were away. He’s back at college now, I hope.”

  “How did —” Barbara paused, “he and Catherine get on?”

  Mary Emerson shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve no idea, my dear. How does anyone ‘get on’ with Catherine, except you?” Then she added, “Oh, … and David. As I was saying, I have to go back to America, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be away. It might be quite a long time.” She looked meaningfully at Barbara, but Barbara looked back, expressionless.

  “The trouble is, I don’t know what to do about Catherine. I mean — I know what to do, but — well, it all depends on you.”

  Barbara made no comment.

  “Iva’s here all the time, but I can’t really expect her to take complete charge of Catherine — for a couple of weeks, yes, but not for long. Catherine needs someone to talk to occasionally, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask Iva —”

  “You want me to look after her?”

  “Yes, my dear — well — not exactly. I was wondering whether you’d consider coming to live here while I’m away.”

  “I thought you didn’t like the idea of two — mad girls living in the same house?” Barbara smiled.

  Mary Emerson laughed. “You’re not mad, my dear, and I sometimes wonder, if you stay with Catherine for much longer, whether she’ll go on being mad.”

  Barbara looked down. “I really can’t tell you until I know something definite about David.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that’ll be all right.”

  “What do you mean?” Barbara said sharply. “What’s David going to do if I come and live here?”

  “Well, he can come and live here, too. I don’t see that that’s a problem.”

  “He might not want to.”

  Mary Emerson cleared her throat. “Yes, I must say I hadn’t actually thought about David. I didn’t realize —” her voice faded away, and Barbara imagined what she had been going to say. “I didn’t realize you and David had that sort of relationship,” or “I thought you and David were just friends.”

  But Mary Emerson went on, “Well, perhaps you could come every day and — listen, why don’t we put off saying or doing anything until you hear what David has to say. Then, let’s say, next Monday you’ll give me some sort of reply.” She put her head on one side and smiled. “I am sorry if I sound as though I’m trying to push you, my dear, but if you can’t come I’ll have to find someone else, and I should start looking right away if I’m to leave in six weeks.”

  “Oh,” Barbara said. She thought for a moment. “You mean even if I couldn’t live here, I could still come every day to give Catherine her lessons?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. But there really would have to be someone else here all the time, apart from Iva. I’m sure I can get a nurse or something like that dumb Deborah who was here before you.”

  “Catherine doesn’t need a nurse.”

  “No, but she does need someone. And quite honestly, she’d like you more than anyone else.”

  Barbara nodded. “Yes. And I’m not sure if a nurse would be good for her — or anyone she didn’t know.” She paused. “Look, I’ll think about it, and as soon as I’ve heard what David has to say I’ll let you know, as quickly as possible.”

  Mary Emerson smiled. “Thank you, Barbara. Now if you’ll forgive me I’ll talk about money. I thought $600 a month, plus all your meals, here of course — Iva will have the housekeeping money. And then the car you’ll need, and any extra expenses — you know, if you and Catherine go to the cinema, or away for the weekend — but anyway, think about it, and we’ll talk later.”

  Barbara nodded. “All right.”

  “Now I have to go out again.”

  “And I must get back to Catherine.” She smiled. “You know, it gets quite painful for me when I start working again — even after only three months.”

  Mary Emerson laughed. “But at least it keeps you thin. Look at me‚” she said, and laughed again.

  Barbara went back into the living room, and Catherine smiled at her from the sofa.

  *

  “Are you going to come and live here then?” Catherine asked ten minutes later.

  “So you know?”

  Catherine nodded, then came up to Barbara and whispered, “She’s been planning this for months. But you mustn’t let her go.”

  Barbara smiled. “Why not?”

  “If she goes she’ll never come back.”

  “Wouldn’t that make you happy?” Barbara whispered.

  Catherine glanced at her and smiled, slyly, at the floor. Then she said, “But you’ll never find Mr. Jacks — David — again, if you let her go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s gone out now,” Catherine said in a loud voice. “I want to go outside. Come with me.” She turned and walked to the French windows. Then she said thickly, “She had to get rid of David, otherwise you wouldn’t come and stay here. So she’s sent him to America.”

  3

  Catherine went to the fountain and stared at the fish.

  Barbara followed her. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  Catherine turned to her. “He was going to bed with mother‚” she said. “She’s sent him to America and —” the girl paused, at a loss for words. Then she continued, “She’s going out to join him and she’s going to leave us tw
o together to look after each other. You see if she isn’t.” She smiled faintly and turned back to the fountain.

  Barbara didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t quite grasp what Catherine had said. It was as if it didn’t concern her, as if it was something that affected only Catherine. She stood and looked at the gray November sky, at the cold gray fountain, where scarlet fish swam in dim, reflected clouds, and at the brown gravel under her feet. She repeated to herself what Catherine had said. David had gone to America. David had been having an affair with Mary Emerson. Or perhaps Mary Emerson had been having an affair with David in order to get him out of the way. But whoever was lover or loved, and whatever the motives for the affair, the fact was that David had gone to America, and Mary Emerson was going to join him; Mary Emerson was going to America, and she was going to be widowed again, and left alone. “It’s impossible‚” she said to Catherine.

  “Why?” Catherine said.

  As so often to the girl’s questions, Barbara could only say, “I don’t know.”

  *

  The week after she had arrived in Rome she found the address and telephone number David had given her in London, and called him.

  He answered the phone, and when Barbara said who she was, and reminded him of their having met in London, he said “Oh,” paused, and then said “How are you, Barbara?” He sounded nervous, as if he regretted having given his number to her, or thought it strange that she had taken literally his “Look me up.” But she knew no one in Rome, and was determined not to be lonely, not to feel sorry for herself, not to give herself the opportunity of regretting her move south. So she ignored the nervousness in David’s voice and said, “I’m very well. I arrived in Rome a week ago.”

  “What are you doing here? Taking a vacation?”

  “No, I’m teaching a girl here.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” His voice sounded disappointed.

  “I was wondering if we could get together,” Barbara said. She was sure this would cause panic.

  But the voice said “Sure. That would be nice. Why don’t you come over for lunch tomorrow?”

  She went, next day, at one.

  There were four people there when she arrived: David, two other Americans — Bill, and someone whose name she never did manage to catch — and an Italian with an American accent named Marcello. They all looked younger than she, and stared at her almost challengingly as she walked in, introduced herself, and sat down. They seemed to expect her, the only stranger and woman in the room, to take charge. So she lit a cigarette, accepted a drink from David, and said, “What do you all do?”

  Bill and the nameless American were studying at the American Academy; Marcello taught philosophy at the university, and shared the apartment with David.

  “Aren’t you rather young to be teaching philosophy?” Barbara said.

  Marcello smiled — but as if at something other than what she had said — and shook his head. “No.”

  “He’s older than he looks,” David said, “and cleverer.”

  “And what do you do, David?” Barbara said.

  He pushed his long, straight, fair hair off his face and laughed. “Oh, me —”

  “David’s brilliant,” Marcello interrupted, and David said, “I don’t do anything really.”

  Barbara nodded and said, “That’s nice,” and the nameless American said, “But not true. David’s ashamed of what he does.”

  “I think,” David said. Then he shook his head and said, “I work for the USAF.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Oh, God.” David raised his eyebrows wearily. “I think how to teach computers syntax. And other things.”

  “Oh,” Barbara said. Then, because no one else seemed about to speak, she said, “What does that involve?”

  “Do you really want to know?” The American called Bill asked.

  Barbara was beginning to feel nervous. “Yes, really.”

  David smiled. “Well, you see — you can teach computers words and you can teach computers sentences and you can teach computers rules of grammar. But it’s sort of difficult to get computers to use what they know — to put things together or understand that the same sentence can have two different meanings. So for three weeks in every month I sit around and think how to program computers, and then for the first five days every month I sit down in a hotel room with four other strange characters and we all discuss what we’ve thought about and we make a report, and then the head of the group pays me, and I go home and start thinking again. It’s as easy as that.”

  “David’s modest,” Marcello said, looking up from a book he was reading.

  “Then sometimes I write a little article on linguistics that gets published in some obscure German magazine, which no one reads and no one would understand if they did, but which convinces my unknown employers in the Pentagon that I’m worth wasting good money on.”

  “How did you get the job?”

  “I’m not too sure. I did English Literature at Harvard, and then for my Ph.D. I wrote a thesis on, I’m sorry to say, communications. And then one morning I get this letter, and I go and talk to a whole crowd of rather ordinary little men and at the end I’m offered this job and it sounds like the easiest thing in the world, so I say yes. Then I discover that there are these little groups of people all over the Western world doing the same thing, so I ask if I can do my thinking in Italy and they say yes, and give me the name of someone to contact here. So here I am, working. Do you want another drink?”

  “Please.” Barbara turned to the nameless American. “Why should he be ashamed?”

  From behind her David answered. “Marcello doesn’t approve. He thinks I’m aiding the forces of reaction and tyranny.”

  “You are,” Marcello said from his book.

  David smiled. “Sure I am. But Marcello’s rich and comes from an old and noble family, and I’m just a poor Jewish boy from New York.”

  Barbara looked around at him and he grinned. “I don’t look Jewish, do I? But —” he came over to her and put his face near hers — “I do have Jewish eyes. See.”

  Barbara felt embarrassed. “You have beautiful eyes‚” she said, without meaning to.

  Marcello laughed. “That’s not what you were meant to say. You were only meant to think it. Why do you think he showed you his beautiful eyes? You should have said, ‘Yes, you have got Jewish eyes.’ That would really have upset him. David likes to think he’s different.”

  *

  David was different, Barbara thought — and he did have beautiful eyes. She saw him again a week later at a party he invited her to; and she found, as she talked to him, that she liked him, that he made her laugh, that he was intelligent, that he was physically very attractive — and that she disapproved of him. She didn’t know why, but something in her was outraged by him, and she wondered, as she spoke to him, whether he was queer or conceited or simply very truthful.

  After she had seen him a few more times, she decided that her outrage was caused by the fact that he gave the impression of liking her, of enjoying her company, of being happy talking with her, but of not, basically, giving a damn for her. He made her feel that he had no interest in her as Barbara, as a person with a past, a thin widow alone in the world — or, indeed, as a person at all. Strangely, he gave the impression of being the same way toward himself, and somehow he never referred in any way to his upbringing, education, family, or job. After she’d been out with him, she didn’t really know what he had spoken about at all. She felt, when she was with him, that she was living in a vacuum chamber; and while she was outraged by David’s implicit destruction of herself, she was also exhilarated by it.

  One day she thought of trying to explain this to Catherine, or even trying to interpret it to her in terms of dance. But she knew Catherine would never be able to follow her, and in fact, she doubted whether she would be able to follow herself.

  In short, she told herself after she had known David a month, she was in love with him.


  They went away together for a weekend; they slept together and made love, and it was the first time for her since Howard had died. She didn’t mention Howard to David. And as he never asked her about herself, other than to ask, occasionally, “How are you?” she expected never to have to tell him.

  One day, two months after she had arrived in Italy, she had met Marcello in the street, and he told her that his mother had died and he was going to move into her apartment. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. The next day, having dinner with David, she said, “I’m tired of living in that pensione, it’s sad. I think I’m going to get a small apartment of my own. You don’t know of any, do you?”

  David shook his head. “You’re welcome to stay with me while you’re looking.”

  “What about Marcello?” Barbara said. “Will there be room?”

  “Marcello has decided he wants a place of his own,” David said. “He’s taken an apartment just down the street.”

  Barbara looked at him sharply.

  “Do you mind?” David asked. She shook her head. “No, of course not.” Then she added, hoping it wasn’t true, “It’s nothing to do with me.”

  David said nothing.

  A week later she moved in. Hanging her clothes in a wardrobe, she said to David, “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  He smiled. “Why on earth should I mind?”

  Barbara lowered her head. “It’s just that — oh, I don’t know.” She looked up. “I mean — I’m barging in on you here. You’d probably like to be on your own.”

  David raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you want to stay here?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s just that I don’t see — what’s in it for you.”

  David laughed.

  She never did see what was in it for him, and that was all part of her reason for loving him.

  After she had been there four days she had said, “You know, you’re a fraud. You pretend you never work but you’re always sitting scribbling in corners. Why don’t you make the little room into a sort of study?”