But it would be different for Barbara. She didn’t have to live there; she wanted to. She wasn’t tied to Catherine; she was dedicated to her — she loved her. Catherine was a symbol of life, creation, gain, not death and loss. Catherine had the means, and she would show her the way. They would be happy.
Barbara felt fertile. She was going to give birth to Catherine. And then if David came back — well, she would worry about that, if and when he did. She had a feeling that he had gone for some time, and that when he did, finally, return, she would have achieved miracles for Catherine, who would be capable of taking care of herself, who would be able to go out and not only pass for normal but actually be normal. She saw David returning as a reward for her, as a prize she’d earned. Perhaps he was waiting for Mary Emerson — and when he’d used her, made her entirely dependent on him, he’d leave. He’d come back, to her, Barbara. David would be her reward, and her revenge on Mary Emerson.
By the time the record was finished her dreams of triumph and revenge had passed. She was alone in the world, and so was Catherine, whose sickness was probably incurable. Perhaps they could help each other. That was all. It was as valid as any sort of work, and probably more valid than most sorts of marriage.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would tell Mary Emerson that she would come and look after Catherine.
*
But before she could do so, she was nearly killed.
It was a beautiful day. The old city floated in a warm November sun, and in the soft air the traffic seemed absurd and unreal. The cars became insects, hooting and squealing but inoffensive.
Barbara decided to walk to the Emersons’, and she meditated, as she walked, on insects.
She closed her eyes now and then, feeling the peaceful warmth on her. She wondered where David was, and what it would be like living with Catherine all the time. They would get up and have breakfast together. In the spring and summer — until October, or even the beginning of November — they would be able to have breakfast outside. Then they would sit and talk, possibly read. Perhaps, she thought, she should read a newspaper to Catherine every day, make her take an interest in the world. Then — oh, she didn’t know. She would wait and see. It was a beautiful day.
They might go away for a couple of days every now and then; drive up to Florence or Siena. Or go to the beach. She couldn’t remember whether Catherine could swim; perhaps she’d never asked her. She had suggested once to Mary Emerson, one morning in July when her mother had wanted to be alone, that she take Catherine to the beach — she had been going with David and Marcello. But Mary Emerson had only gasped with laughter and said, “Good heavens, no!” She’d never mentioned it again.
They could go to museums and look at paintings and statues — just one or two at a time in the beginning — and then if Catherine enjoyed it they could do it more; go round churches, look at ruins.
Almost without noticing, she reached the Appia Antica. She walked along the narrow cobbled road, and the sun shone down on her through the pines and the cypresses, making the high walls on either side of her glow gold. She closed her eyes. Every now and then an insect-car rushed past her. She wondered what she would do about sex when she was living with Catherine. She would find someone, she supposed. Someone who would take her out to dinner and make love to her afterward. It wouldn’t be difficult. She was still young. And she would never have to get involved. She would always be able to say, “No, I can’t see you on such or such a day; I can’t leave Catherine.” Or “I’m sorry I can’t listen to your problems, I have a problem of my own and I don’t talk about that.” Or, when they told her drunkenly that they loved her, “I’m sorry, but there’s no point in telling me that — I’m already involved.”
She smiled to herself. Oh, she would be all right; she would get taken out to dinner as often as she liked and make love with as many different men as she liked, because she would never be able to get involved with them. She was free, and Catherine was going to be the guardian of her freedom. Catherine was going to keep her free for David.
She wondered what Catherine thought about sex, or what, if anything, she did about sex. She hoped she wasn’t lesbian; it might make things difficult. But she didn’t think so; Catherine had never tried to touch her unnecessarily, or get close to her physically. Perhaps Mary Emerson’s sneering explanation was right; perhaps, in the spring and summer, when Catherine went off into the wilderness, she met some boy or boys who had come over the wall. Perhaps the local boys knew that the mad foreign girl could always be had when she wandered through the long grass in the spring and summer.
But it was more likely, Barbara thought, that Catherine had no sex, and thought about it only in abstract terms; her sexual urges were sublimated in some way. Perhaps — she smiled as she thought it — simply looking for snakes in the grass was enough; were she ever to find one, it would — what? Bite her, and make her die of bliss? She smiled again, and thought, “Poor Catherine.”
She wondered whether Mary Emerson had a lover, or whether her own mother had ever had sex again after her husband, Barbara’s father, had died, when she was two years old.
She walked along thinking about David, about Catherine, about her mother, about sex. She thought about Mary Emerson, who had wasted her life being with someone she hated but couldn’t leave. It was sad, because it had been unnecessary. If only she had loved Catherine, she wouldn’t have been her prisoner. She was going off now, thinking she was going to be free and happy, but she wouldn’t be. She had wasted too much for what remained to be anything other than bitter, and that was why, if she thought she was going to have David, she was wrong. She was leaving too late. David would stay with her for three months, six months, possibly a year. Then he would see the awful waste in her, like a hole left by the removal of a vast tumor, and he would go away. He would have proved whatever it was he was trying to prove to himself. And that would be the end of Mary Emerson.
Barbara felt sad for her, walking along in the November afternoon. She even felt sad for Marcello. For all his strength and his position, he was wasted, too. He planned for his sterile state, and there was no more life in it than in Mary Emerson’s hope. At least, Barbara thought, whatever she did with Catherine, she would be making something grow, creating something.
She felt sad for her mother, for David trying to prove the improvable, for Mary Emerson and Marcello. She felt sad for everyone, except Catherine and herself. For them there was hope.
She had nearly reached the villa. She stepped out into the road without thinking, to cross. There was a squeal of brakes, she screamed and jumped, and a truck stopped within an inch of her.
She shook her head. She had been thinking. She didn’t, for a second, know where she was. She hadn’t heard anything. She stared at the truck and felt very weak.
The truck driver shouted at her, asked her if she was mad, called her an idiot whore and a cretin. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t see you.” The truck driver drove off. She was shaking. She felt sick. She had been thinking, planning, thinking of things she knew nothing about, planning for a future she knew nothing about; and she had nearly been killed. She looked at the cobbled road, and the wall behind her. She looked at the pines and the sky from which the sun had fallen. She was cold, and she was alone. She started to run. She remembered what Catherine had whispered to her the previous afternoon, and couldn’t help feeling, though she knew it was absurd, that she had had a warning, that she had received a threat of death.
*
“What is wrong, Barbara?” Mary Emerson asked.
“I was almost killed,” Barbara said. “I stepped right under a truck. I was miles away, thinking, and I just didn’t hear anything.”
“You look very pale. Come and have a brandy. Half the time they see you’re about to cross and the bastards accelerate. Think they’ll make you jump for it. They’re mad. They’ve only got to misjudge something, or if their brakes fail, or if you don’t see them bearing down on you, and — bang. A
nd then they blame you. I bet he shouted at you.”
Barbara nodded. “Yes. He did.”
“Bastard.”
“But it was my fault. I simply didn’t look.”
“Well, he should have seen anyway, the bastard.” She laughed. “Please don’t get yourself killed, my dear. Not now.”
Barbara smiled at the big handsome head. “I won’t. And talking of which, I meant to tell you today — I’ll come and look after Catherine. I’d like to.”
Mary Emerson took the news without comment; she had obviously been expecting it. She watched Barbara drink her brandy and said, “There! Have you heard from David?”
“No. But I think I know where he is.” She looked the woman in the eye; but Mary Emerson was giving nothing away. “I think he’s gone away for a bit and — you will leave me your address when you go, won’t you? So if I need anything, or David comes back —”
Mary Emerson smiled. “My dear, I’ll probably phone you every week. Of course I’ll leave you my address. You don’t think I’m going to disappear, do you?” She stood up. “I’m so glad you’ve decided you’ll come, and I know Catherine will be. I do hope, from a purely selfish point of view, that David doesn’t come back too soon.” She smiled again. “And remember, don’t get yourself killed. I’ll go call Catherine.” She turned from the doorway, and said with a laugh, “You must think I’m dreadful.”
*
When Barbara told Catherine what she had decided, Catherine nodded and said, “Good.”
“Remember what you told me yesterday?” Barbara said.
“What?”
“I was nearly killed coming here this afternoon.”
Catherine stared at her.
“I was walking along, not watching, thinking about coming here to live with you, and about everything, and I stepped right out in front of a truck.”
Catherine stared at her and then, suddenly, started laughing.
*
When they were in the middle of their lesson, Mary Emerson looked in the door and said, “Barbara, do you think you could stay to dinner tonight? I have to talk to you about things.”
Barbara nodded. “Thank you. I’d like to.”
*
They ate at nine; Catherine had already eaten, and was in bed.
“There are a few more things I didn’t tell you about the other day,” Mary Emerson said, “but — well, for obvious reasons I had to know whether you were coming before I mentioned them.”
Barbara thought of what the woman had told Marcello, and wondered what her “obvious reasons” were.
“You know, all the fiddly little details it wasn’t worth going into unless —” she smiled, and didn’t finish. “Anyway, as you may or may not know, Catherine is a very rich girl and will theoretically come into her money when she is twenty-one, on December 30th. Of course she can’t actually look after it herself, and Luke, my son, becomes more or less responsible for her. Now as I said, you’ll get $600 a month, which will be paid by the trustees — that’s your salary, let’s say. Then Iva will have her money and everything she needs for running the house and generally looking after things — she’ll send an account of what she’s spent every month and — oh, well, I’ve known Iva for years and there are no problems there, and besides I know more or less what it costs to keep this place running. But the problem is Catherine. What’s to be done with her? She will have an income — after she’s paid you and Iva and taxes and everything — of about $60,000 a year — more or less $5000 a month. Catherine couldn’t possibly spend that amount of money — on the other hand, she should have anything and everything she wants, within reason. Now Luke and I thought — he’s very mature for his age — and the trustees have agreed to always keep $1000 at the disposal of whoever’s looking after Catherine. This will have to be accounted for to the trustees, of course, as it’s spent — you know, if Catherine needs new clothes, if she goes to the doctor or the dentist or anything, you must always keep the receipts and send them off. But also, if you want to take Catherine away for a holiday or anything, you can pay for yourself out of that money.” She smiled, and poured some more wine. “What I mean is — anything that you and Catherine do together she will pay for — and then as you send receipts, airline tickets, hotel bills, and the trustees see that the $1000 are nearly finished, they’ll send more money. Or if, for any reason, you needed more money than $1000, or whatever’s left in the account, just write to the trustees and explain, and they’ll forward what you need.” Barbara noticed that the woman was sweating. “I’m afraid it’s a little complicated, my dear, but you see it doesn’t depend on me but the trustees, and they don’t know you and obviously must safeguard Catherine’s interests.”
“Yes, of course,” Barbara said.
Mary Emerson drank her wine, poured some more, and said, “If it was up to me, my dear, I’d give you the $5000 a month and let you get on with it.” She wiped her forehead. “I hate talking about money. I knew I’d have to and I was dreading it. I thought of writing it all to you in a letter, and then I thought no, I can’t do that, it’s so stupid — oh, and I thought of getting Luke to write to you, or Iva to tell you—” she drank her wine — “it’s so silly. I get quite angry with myself. I’m not a stupid woman normally.”
And that, Barbara supposed, was why she had told Marcello.
“There are some other things, like getting the car insurance transferred into your name, and — oh, I don’t know, but we can talk about all that nearer the time. My lawyer here is looking into all the things that might crop up. The important. thing was to give you the general picture, the basic scheme of things, so you’d know just how things stand.”
Barbara had not drunk nearly so much as Mary Emerson. “One thing I would like to know,” she said. “Are you really just planning a long trip or are you planning to go for good?”
Mary Emerson sighed. “I honestly don’t know, my dear. It depends on a great many unknowns. But let’s say I think I’ll be away fairly permanently.”
Barbara nodded. “Do you like — I mean, have you liked living abroad?”
“Yes and no. I honestly don’t know that either. I was talking about it with your friend Marcello yesterday. I guess I’ve given up a lot living here, but I’ve been obliged, for one reason or another, to live here for so long that it’s difficult to imagine living anywhere else. I really don’t know if I’ve liked it. Do you?”
Barbara nodded. “I think so. I think I love it here. I think—” and she went off into a long, confused, and sentimental speech about the pleasures of Italy, finishing up with, “Excuse me, I think I’ve drunk too much.”
Mary Emerson poured them both some more wine and laughed. “Go on. Drink up. It’s good for you.”
They drank, both of them, but Barbara wasn’t at all drunk. She had made her sentimental speech in order to create what she hoped was a certain mood. She had prepared a question for Mary Emerson, and she had to be sure the time was right for asking it. She asked about Mary Emerson’s youth, about life in the South; and finally she asked, “Did you like David?”
Mary Emerson tried to look at her sharply, but failed, and relapsed into the dreamy smiles that talking about Charleston had produced. “Of course I did, my dear. I thought he was quite beautiful. Silly though it sounds, I was really wild about him.”
Barbara nodded.
“I think Catherine was, too. Oh, dear.” She laughed. “Middle-aged follies. Unfortunately — or perhaps it was fortunately — I don’t think he cared for me.” She shrugged her big shoulders. “I did ask him, but he wasn’t the kind to give a straight answer, was he?”
“No.”
“But I must say I did envy you.” She drank some more wine.
“You don’t think he’ll come back, do you?”
Mary Emerson laughed. “How should I know, my dear?” Then she stood and came around the table to where Barbara was sitting. She stood behind her and put her arms around her, leaned over her and kissed her on the
cheek. She made Barbara feel very thin, and barren, and sober. Then she stood back and threw her red hair over her shoulders and trumpeted, rather than laughed.
“Come now, Barbara,” she said, “let’s be honest with ourselves. You know as well as I do he’ll never come back. You must have known that from the minute he disappeared — or even before. Have some more wine.”
6
Barbara woke with a hangover, and — she thought grimly as she lay in bed — almost nothing else. A hangover and a commitment.
She lay in bed and remembered Mary Emerson lying back on her big sofa, drunk and asleep, with her big jaw hanging down; Barbara had wanted to wake her and tell her she looked like her daughter’s mother. Mary Emerson beached on a sand-colored sofa; a stranded whale with red hair.
Barbara had stared at her as she slept; at the brown silk dress, at the heavy ringed hands, at the shoes that didn’t fall off the surprisingly small feet; and she wondered whether David had ever made love to this carcass, this heavy, handsome lump of flesh. She wondered what the woman was like nude, and pictured David lying on top of her, with his long fair hair falling straight into her thick red hair. She could see them together, and could imagine Mary Emerson saying something like, “David, are you most in love with me?” She could imagine David laughing, and not saying anything — and then she could hear them, lightly, confidently, amusingly, starting to talk about her, to pull her to pieces, and to pity her.
She could hear them, and she knew it was her they were talking about. Staring at the great Southern whale stranded on the sofa, she wished it were dead; she wished that if she got up and walked across the room and touched it, it would fall to the floor with its mouth open; its rings would bang on the wooden floor, its neck would twist back, its little shoes would drop off to reveal red-painted toenails; it would make no sound, and it would be dead.
The Girl Who Passed for Normal Page 9