by Ann Bannon
"You can't, but you will,” he said. “Isn't that why you're here?” There was an embarrassed silence. She didn't know how to answer without exposing herself to him. “Beth,” he said, and the gruff voice softened slightly, “I know you were in love with my daughter."
She gasped, and as he went on she gulped the rest of her drink.
"She told me so. You have a right to know that I know. She—well, she had to tell me; she didn't do it to hurt you. I've kept it to myself. I knew you from the pictures she used to have of you.” She began to cry, and into the sniffly silence he added, “I love her too. Only I can't go find her now. Someone else will have to do that for me."
When they were able to look at each other again he said, “Did you come all the way from California to find her?” She was undone. She had no secrets. He was too much for her, with his bright eyes that penetrated hers and saw so much and suspected so much more. “Yes,” she confessed. “I had to get away from my husband. I was nearly cracking up. I just wanted to see Laura again. Everything was so wonderful then, so awful now. I thought it might help. I thought maybe that was what was wrong with me."
He lighted a cigarette for her and one for himself. “Laura doesn't want to see me again,” he said. “With you it may be different. If you follow her to New York, Beth, you'll find her, somehow. I want you to tell me about her and where she's living. I won't give you cause to regret it. I've messed up her life enough as it is. Just tell me when you find her."
"All right.” She seemed to have no will now. Only a need for Laura, a need for her love so great that it would propel her onward until she found her. “Mr. Landon,” she said, looking at him with all her subterfuges stripped from her. “Why are you kind to me? Why don't you despise me for what I did to your daughter?"
"For what you did to her?” He gave a scornful little laugh that turned against himself. “If I were guiltless myself I could despise anyone I pleased. I could blame anyone I pleased. But I'm not guiltless.” His words made her feel braver. “If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, Beth. You know that, of course. Laura is a Lesbian. Sooner or later she would have understood that, whether with your help or without it."
It was logical, it was sensible. But it had never struck Beth quite that way and it hurt. She stood up with a little gasp and walked away from him. “No,” she blurted. “It was special, it was—almost sacred."
"To you perhaps."
"To both of us. She couldn't have done it with anyone else.” She spoke positively because she was suddenly so unsure.
"I didn't mean to shock you,” he said. “I thought you would have realized long ago that somebody had to be first with her and it just happened to be you. It was no divine choice, just blind accident."
Beth lighted a cigarette with trembling hands. “I guess it's because I've never known any other woman the way I knew Laura,” she said, talking fast to keep the tears back. “I guess it's because there never was anybody else I wanted like that."
"And you just took it for granted that Laura never wanted anybody else, either? You're fooling yourself, my dear. That's her nature. That's her life. For you, with a husband and a family, life has been very different. Now, when you want her again, you're resentful to find that Laura's life has gone on without you. That she's found other women, a whole new mode of living, other interests that you don't share."
It knocked her ego into a corner. “Oh, you spiteful bastard!” she cried in pure self-defense. And then clapped her hands over her mouth, sinking to a small straight-backed chair and weeping angry startled tears that nevertheless broke the tension and relieved her.
Merrill Landon laughed softly and she was unnerved to hear Laura's inflection in the sound. “You have a little spirit, after all,” he said. “Good. You're mad because I'm right. Isn't that so? Of course."
And of course he was right, to her chagrin. “I didn't even think about her after I'd been married,” Beth said brokenly. It was the first time in all these weary months of wondering and experimenting with the wrong person, of deceiving Charlie and perhaps her own self, that she let go and spoke of it. And it felt good. Landon understood her language. That alone made it possible to speak.
"I was dissatisfied,” she explained to him. “Oh, hell, I was just plain sick to death of the whole mess. The little things with a husband aggravated me even more than the big things. And the kids nearly did me in. When it got so I couldn't stand to have Charlie touch me, I knew we'd had it. He didn't, though. He still thinks I'm going through a phase.
"I guess when I changed so much it seemed to me Charlie should change, too. But that was unreasonable of me. Here I am, a completely different Beth, and he's just the same old Charlie."
"You fell in love with him that way,” Landon reminded her. “In love and out,” she said.
"When did it occur to you that Laura might cure your ills?” He handed her a fresh drink and she took a swallow before she answered him.
"I began to dream about her,” she said. “Just a little at first, but then all the time. I met another woman and I tried to find with her what I had known once with Laura, but it didn't work. Made me think that no other woman would be right for me.” She glanced at him shyly, suddenly recalling that he ought to be shocked and disapproving, wondering where she found the guts to confess as she did. The whiskey? The house, Laura's house? The man, Laura's father? She saw no shock in his face, only interest and a certain remote sympathy, and it gave her a new respect for him.
"The other woman didn't love you?” he asked.
"Yes, she did,” Beth said. He saw her chin quiver and knew she was, understating things for him.
"When you find Laura, do you think she'll be just the way she was when you knew her in college?” he asked.
"No. That'd be pretty naive of me,” Beth said.
"And yet that's what you're looking for in her. You don't know her the way she is now. You're setting out to find your old college roommate. Laura may disappoint you like this other woman did. Just by being different from your memories of her. Then where will you turn, Beth?"
It was a dismal thing to face. She had resolutely ignored the possibility until now.
"You'd better make plans,” London continued. “A thing like that could crack you up if you're not prepared for it. It's been a while, Beth, quite a while. Nine years?"
She nodded. “She hasn't forgotten me, has she? Could that be?"
"She hadn't when I saw her. She remembers a college girl with no real experience of life, the way you do. She remembers an ingenuous romance. She remembers that you jilted her for a boy you knew, and probably married the boy. End of story. You'll have to take it from there yourself when you find her."
"If I find her,” she said and emptied her glass again.
"You will, if you still want to as much as you did when you came in here tonight."
She put the glass down. “I do,” she whispered.
He smiled. “You may get to New York and find her right there in the phone book. Who knows?"
Beth gave a wry little laugh. “Sure,” she said. “I was thinking, on the plane, ‘What if I get to Chicago and there she is, at home with her father.’ It would have been too easy, though. But I did think she'd be living in the city, at least. Now ... New York. God. When I get to New York they'll tell me she's living in Paris. And if I ever make it to Paris, damned if she isn't already on her way to Hong Kong."
"She's not much of a vagabond,” Landon reassured her. “She'd have stayed here in Chicago if I'd made it tolerable for her. This was her home. She liked it here.... Have you any money?” he asked abruptly, looking directly at her.
"A little,” she said with some pride.
"A little doesn't last long in New York."
"I have about three thousand in my bank account."
"Well, depending on how you live and whether you work or not, that might see you through a half year."
"I don't gamble,” she snapped “I don't eat at the St
ork Club. And I don't throw the stuff away."
"He laughed. “Okay, my dear. Go to New York with your three thousand dollars and live on it for the rest of your life if you can. I wish you only luck—the best kind. I was just thinking, if you should need a loan...” And seeing her face storm up he added, “I'm not laughing at you, Beth. I think you're a better girl—a braver girl—than I did at first Maybe I hoped you'd be a disappointment You see, I haven't liked you very well, over the years, since Laura told me she loved you. Simple jealousy. I haven't liked any of the others she told me about either. But I suppose it's only fair. I had her all to myself for eighteen years and only made her miserable.” He turned away as he spoke. “When at last I had to share her, it was with her own sex. I was shocked when she told me, but after a while I found I preferred it to sharing her with men."
There was an awkward silence. Beth stared in surprise at his broad back in its brown tweed lounging jacket, feeling that his admission bound her to him, as hers bound him to her. They had a little something on each other now. They owed each other some small allegiance.
"I'll send you her address, if I find her,” Beth said. “Thank you. And your own. I don't think I'd better write Laura. I'll have to depend on you for news. Do you mind?"
Beth began to laugh and made him turn around to stare in his turn. “Is that funny?” he asked.
Beth shook her head and when she found her voice she said, “No, life is funny. I can't write to Charlie either. There'* a friend in Pasadena who's doing for me what I'm doing for you. Writing to tell me all the news.” They gazed at each other a little guiltily and still with amusement. “Are we a pair of cowards, Mr. Landon?” she said. “Or are we braver than everybody else?"
"Cowards, of course,” he said. “We aren't really brave at all. But we do have a certain strength. You set out to find yourself, and that takes strength. I found myself long ago and had the strength to live with what I found—not a pleasant task.” He grinned at her and suddenly she liked him. She liked him very much and in that instant she saw Laura in his face, his smile, again.
They were a pair of conspirators. If Beth found Laura and won her love again, she would be an ally for Merrill Landon. Through Beth he might come close once again to the daughter he adored; once again before time caught up with him and closed his life. For he was in his late fifties now and he had lived too hard. He was tired. He wanted a few years with her, and the idea had struck him when he interviewed Beth that this might be the last way to achieve the goal. He couldn't approach Laura himself. She would turn and run before he could speak, and she had a right to. But Beth might speak for him. She liked him. He could see it in her face.
They parted with an understanding—friends.
Chapter Eleven
BETH WITHDREW HER money from the bank. There was nearly four thousand dollars. That was plenty. She felt extravagantly rich with the money her parents had left her lined up neatly in traveler's checks in her wallet. She took the precaution of getting the funds before she broke the news to Uncle John. Not that he could have stopped her; the money was hers, free and clear. But he could have slowed things down, and she wanted to be able to go now, at once.
"I've been thinking,” she told him the next day, “that I'd like to take a trip."
"A trip?"
"Yes. To forget. To think about something else. I want to see some new places, Uncle John. I want to roam a little. I think it'll do me good."
He appeared unconvinced. He was a cautious man by nature and a provincial. If you could stay at home with your own comfortable bed and the food you liked,” why go anywhere? His days of patient silence weighted his spirits down, too, and he suddenly asked his niece, with straightforward concern, “Beth, what about your children? How can you go traveling and just leave them?"
"They're all right,” she said, looking away.
"How do you know? How long do you intend to be away from them? Is that good for children? Damn it, you haven't explained any of this to me yet. I don't like it."
"Uncle John, quit worrying!” she cried irritably. “The kids are with their father. They're better off with him, you must understand that."
"Why don't you take them away from him? You're their mother, for God's sake. If you're going to divorce Charlie you'd better start doing something about it instead of running around the country. Are you going to go through life married to a man who's unworthy of you, who won't let you keep your own children?"
"That has nothing to do with it! I told you it was all my fault!” she cried.
"What did you do, then? Just what, exactly, did you do? What's the matter with you, Beth? I have a right to know. I'm feeding you and sheltering you—I'm supporting you. Your husband should be doing this."
"You mean if I don't tell you everything you don't want me here?” she demanded, stunned.
"I mean you owe me an explanation!” he said, and she saw that his slow temper was finally roused. His balding head reddened. “Are you in love with some other man?"
"No!"
"Did you disgrace yourself? Or Charlie??*
"No!"
"Do you want your children, do you love yow children?"
"Yes!” She was furious. Her voice broke.
"Then why in God's name don't you get them? It's unnatural! How is it that Charlie can keep them from you?"
"I gave them up!” she shouted. “I gave them up in exchange for my freedom. There! Make sense out of that if you can!"
She ran upstairs to her room and began to pack.
She made a one-way reservation to New York City and then she sat down and wrote a letter to Nina Spicer, the writer whose books about Lesbian life in New York had attracted her. She had almost forgotten Nina until her talk with Merrill Landon. Now, suddenly, the writer appeared to her as a possible starting place in her search. Nina knew New York; you could tell that from the books she wrote. She knew the Village, and she knew gay life both in and out of the Village. There was no reason to suppose she knew Laura, but perhaps she knew of her, knew where she could be found.
Beth had been candid, in a way, with Nina. She pretended she was gay, even when she wasn't sure of it herself. She painted a picture of herself as beautiful, lost, misunderstood, yearning for a passionate romance with any compatible female. When she wrote the words she believed them true and her belief carried conviction, for Nina answered her with a certain condescending kindness and sympathy.
So Nina Spicer had a passel of half-facts from which to form an opinion of Beth. And Beth knew even less of Nina—only what she could guess from the books: a half-dozen violent, lively, coarse stories, loaded with deaths and beatings and perversities. They had some of the interest of good newspaper reporting, with a sort of gusto in the gory details and a lot of tormented screwballs for characters. Occasionally the love scenes were moving; more often, blunt case histories, skillfully dissected.
Beth pictured her as a casual hard-headed girl, fast to take up an affair, fast to drop it; hard to know and only partly worth the effort. But she was grateful, terribly grateful, to Nina for her letters. She wished there were some way to know her without having to meet her, for she sensed a bridgeless difference between herself and Nina that might make enemies of them. But she needed help now and Nina was the only person she knew who could give it to her.
Beth escaped at midafternoon the next day, taking a bus from the Conrad Hilton on Michigan Boulevard to the airport. It was that simple. No one even saw her leave the house.
There was no crushing despair, no gnawing panic and indecision this time. This time she was on the last leg of the journey, the all-consuming quest to find Beth Cullison Ayers and make a human being out of her. Laura was at the other end.
But Laura was not in the Manhattan directory when Beth checked it at the airport.
What if she died? What if she got sick and died, or left the country, or went to jail? What if she can't stand the sight of me? But she banished such painful musings as fast as they came up. She c
ouldn't really believe in them or there would be more point in jumping out of the plane than riding it to New York.
She went directly to the Beaton Hotel on First Avenue near the U.N. Building. She remembered the name from the time she and Uncle John and Aunt Elsa had stayed there when she was a youngster of ten. It had seemed like the marvelous castle in the fairy tales to her then, and the name remained in her memory.
They gave her a room on the fourth floor. She took the least expensive one they had, the kind where you share the bathroom with two or three other rooms. Perhaps it was an unnecessary economy, but she had Merrill Landon's sardonic warnings about money ringing in her ears and she wasn't going to be caught spending hers foolishly.
She unpacked a few things and hung them in the closet, and all the while her heart was high and going a little faster than it should have. She was in New York. Laura was in New York. Things would work out, they had to.
And what if they did? What if Laura could be found, and fast? And what if she fell into Beth's arms as though the nine years between them didn't exist, their lives apart didn't exist? Then what?
Then, Beth thought, almost timidly, divorce. I'll have to divorce Charlie. I'll never get the children back. My children. My babies. My own flesh. But I'll have Laura again. Was it worth it? It had to be.
Quickly she went to the phone book, the Manhattan directory, and looked for Laura Landon. Maybe the one in Chicago was wrong. After following her shaking finger down several columns she got the answer she secretly expected; the answer the phone book at the Chicago airport had already given her: no listing. She sighed and lighted a cigarette. It was not going to be a cinch, this strange mission of hers. She checked the book again for Nina Spicer's name.
Nina was there. With relief and some trepidation she dialed the number. It was ten-thirty in the morning, but the voice that answered was obviously newly roused from sleep. It was a low pleasant feminine voice, almost sultry. Beth liked it. It made her curious to meet the owner, curious to see what she looked like.