by Paul Gallico
The Minister misread her, as did all the others, with the exception of Nonnie, who whispered to Muller, 'Oh dear, can't he see? She's going to blow up.'
Scott said, 'I'm afraid we'll have to go on, Jane. We can't remain here any longer if we're to have a chance. We must use every minute. You've seen that the water's rising. And there's another reason.'
Manny Rosen asked, 'What's that?'
'Air,' Scott replied. 'We're trapped inside the hull. We don't know how much oxygen there is, or how long it will last. Haven't you noticed it's hotter? We've got to go on.'
Nonnie whispered to Muller, 'But how can we? Hasn't he any heart?'
Muller said, 'Hush!' and held her more tightly in the shadows outside the circle of yellow torchlight.
Jane Shelby asked, 'And my son?'
Scott replied, 'We'll find him on the way.'
'Brother,' said Rogo, 'I wouldn't be all that sure.'
For the first time it seemed that with an innocent enough remark the detective had got under the Minister's skin, for in a voice again risen in pitch he replied, 'Where's your faith? I've told you, he'll be found.'
Jane declared, 'I'll stay here and look.'
Richard Shelby added, 'Susan and I will stay with you of course, Mother. We won't leave you . . .'
He did not mean it. He did not mean it at all. He did not want to, he did not want either Susan or himself to stay behind in this awful tunnel that already stank of death. Scott had promised they would find the boy. He believed him. He wanted to believe him. If there was a chance that his son was alive or in the vicinity he would not have gone on, but they had searched the alley thoroughly, aided by a police-force detective. Yet if his wife persisted in her decision on the chance that after so long a time he might suddenly reappear, it was their duty to remain by her side. But he could not help himself hating the sacrifice, or thinking of the injustice of it; three more lives for one, Jane, Susan and himself.
Jane knew it as she always had. He would inevitably do the right thing from the wrong motives, the perfect outward man, the male animal, Homo Sapiens Americanus who never put a foot wrong, a clean mind in a healthy body and a heart the size of a pickled walnut in his big chest.
He had loved his son in the same way he had loved her, by all the outward signs; had played football with him, hiked and camped with him, done everything a father should do except love him and understand him. In place of love he substituted pride: pride in his looks and talents as a little reproduction of himself.
Or, thought Jane, for pride substitute vanity. He was vain of his wife, his daughter, his son, his job, success, career, home, friends, his position in the community. Nobody could fault Dick Shelby. He was a great guy with a great family. He had it made, made, made. And she knew that within he was as hollow as that football he so passionately enjoyed throwing about with his son so that one day the boy would garner the same automated cheers that had rung in his own ears on the football field and make him feel even more proud. 'That was Robin Shelby. Dick Shelby's kid. Remember Dick Shelby '49? He had a great pair of hands. The kid's just like him.'
Jane had discovered this a year after their marriage had been celebrated in Detroit with the pomp due a daughter of a motor hierarchy. Young Dick Shelby was known as a comer and her father, Howland Cranborne, President of Cranborne Motors, was wagering Jane on his own judgement that this was so.
As for Jane, she had been in love and had married Shelby of all the young men she had known or at one time or another had cared about, all rather stamped like auto parts from the same mould, because she had felt something vaguely pathetic hidden away within Dick which had excited her compassion.
The love she received in return was compounded of the gamut of Madison Avenue advertising clichés woven around the word. In terms of the 'How To . . .' books, she could not fault his performance in bed. It was his pride to satisfy her, but never his need. Often, when they had done and she was flooded with warmth and tenderness, she would be chilled by the intrusion of the feeling that he was lying beside her as though he expected the door to open and the coach walk in to give him a pat on the back, or Prexy to award him a diploma.
But the real shock of disillusionment had come with the discovery that the pathos she had misjudged as a need lacking in him that she could supply was something quite different. It was nothing but a fear of being found wanting in conformity. His craving to conform to the accepted standards was overwhelming.
He wanted neither more nor less out of life. He was good at whatever he did, better than good enough, but never smashingly outstanding. Thus he could associate himself with and hero worship a Scott both at the same time. He belonged. He too, had once scored the winning touchdown. World War II had seen him achieve a Captaincy of artillery with a year's service in the Pacific, in which his behaviour had been exemplary. He had returned, undecorated and untarnished, popular with his company, cool enough under fire, a man who had done everything an undistinguished soldier should, because he could not have dared be anything either less, or more.
Jane was well aware that by his marriage to her he was certain he had taken the cup in the Conformity Stakes. And because she was a thoroughbred herself and a good sport, she had played the game his way and managed a not too unhappy marriage in which perhaps her greatest achievement had been to conceal from Richard Shelby for twenty years, the fact that he had been found out.
But now the suppressed resentments of those two decades were brought to bursting point by the bald production of the pattern. He was offering to remain behind, not because he had been stricken by the loss of his son, but because it was the right and proper gesture.
In her anguish, she was like a receiving set vibrating and tuning into the wavelength of every emotion. She felt the impatience of the others in the party. Her fate, her dilemma, her person or what happened to her was not really any of their concern. She had become an obstacle and a nuisance like fat Mrs Rosen, who was threatening their chances of survival. She knew her husband wanted to conform to their wishes too, and to Scott's leadership.
Belle said, 'We shouldn't go without the boy. For my part I wouldn't care if we didn't take another step. To me it all sounds crazy -- up, down -- down, up. When the boat sinks we'll all be going the same way.'
'I don't see what could have happened to the little feller,' said Manny Rosen. 'I didn't hear nothing in the dark when the rush came, if he called out, maybe. But if he got tramp . . . I mean, knocked down, maybe we would have . . .' He trailed off lamely, knowing that with each word he was making it worse.
It was the not knowing! Had she found him dead, Jane could have mourned him as those already crushed, lacerated and drowned beneath them would be mourned. But if he were still amongst the living, alone, terrified, blundering about in some pitch black, inverted corridor, or store space, or fallen down one of those awful wells . . .
Nonnie went to her, took her hand and said, 'Oh, Mrs Shelby, we don't want to leave you!'
And Muller added, 'We do understand bow you must feel.'
Martin said, 'Maybe we ought to have another look.'
And Miss Kinsale put in, 'Yes I do think we should.'
Rogo said, 'I wouldn't know where, unless he got picked up by people trying to make it up to the bow. They wouldn't turn back for him and he wouldn't have been able to go it alone.'
Linda said, 'It's her own fault. Why didn't she stick with the kid?'
For all of the beastliness of the remark, Jane knew that it was true. She ought never to have listened to him, never have given in to the squeamishness that same conformity had instilled into her boy.
Racked, Jane felt the falsity behind all their protestations. The little dancing girl might be sincere; the rest of them wanted to get on. She had felt it herself, the urgency to climb up and out while there was still time, to survive where so many had died, the triumph of each little victory, the terrible suspense of the crippled ship. But her rage flooded towards her husband.
Scott wa
s honest. 'Dick, it will have to be your decision. I have pledged myself to go on with these people. They've trusted me. We will leave you your torches and one of the big lanterns but remember, they won't last for ever. If I didn't feel that the boy was safe or that we'd find him in the end, I would never suggest . . .'
'Naturally,' said Shelby, 'I shall remain with my wife.' Suddenly-grown-up Susan seemed to herself to be standing on one side, observing. Lost Robin, harrowed mother, sacrificing father! And who was asking Susan whether she wished to live or die, for which of two forlorn hopes she might care to opt? And in her nostrils was the scent of break-up, of the final explosion of the undercurrent she had divined.
It happened as Jane Shelby turned on her husband and said, 'Oh no, you won't!' in a voice shuddering with hatred and disgust.
To Susan, who had been expecting it, it came almost as a relief. Richard Shelby, completely unaware of the feeling stored up in this for ever gay and graceful woman and about to be let loose, stared as though she had gone suddenly mad and stammered, 'But Jane! What do you mean -- why?'
'Because I don't want you to. Because I don't want you near me. Because I loathe and detest you. Because you are nothing but an automaton programmed to walk and talk and act like the cardboard cut-out of a man.'
Shelby began to tremble. It was still unbelievable. 'Jane, do you know what you're saying?'
'I know very well what I'm saying, that you are a weak, spineless creature who has settled for anything and everything except growing into a human being. You've never once thought of or even dared to do something that wasn't done; I've hated being in your home, I've hated being in your bed.'
The outburst stunned everyone but Scott, who was a little to one side, waiting and distributing the big lanterns and the coils of rope between Kemal and himself. The others stood about trying to look away, with the exception of Linda who laughed and said to Rogo, 'There's your lady for you! And you kick about me!'
In growing horror Shelby was becoming aware that what he had felt to be the safe, secure foundations of his marriage were beginning to disintegrate. And blunderingly he had recourse to the clichés of the man unexpectedly faced with an aroused female, 'But Jane . . . I've always loved you.'
She cried, 'You! You wouldn't know the meaning of the word. I've hated your loving when I ought to have loved you most, I've despised your cowardice and squaring up to the good husband image. You haven't even had the guts to take yourself a mistress, or crawl into bed with somebody else's wife for the sheer lark of it. I'd have respected you if you had, but you conformed even there, whoring it with tarts with the boys out of town, so that they wouldn't think you weren't a man's man.'
The edifice began to topple. How had she found out about those little escapades during meetings in New York, Chicago and Atlanta?
'You don't even know what I'm talking about,' Jane said. 'You're standing there wondering how I knew about your tarting? Do you think I cared? Did you ever think of me as a human being with understanding? Whenever I wanted to open a window on the life we were leading, you put on double locks until I stopped trying. You'll try to make me go with you for the sake of my life; Susan's and yours. You'll stay behind with me because a man doesn't desert his wife even when he thinks that she's being selfish and a fool. But your heart isn't breaking inside your ribs because you've lost your boy, because he may be trampled, smothered, drowned or just a terrified child lost in the dark.'
She sank to her knees, buried her face in her hands and cried over and over, 'I'll never know! I'll never know!'
Again Nonnie was the first to reach her, kneel by her side and throw her arms about her. 'Oh now, lovey, please!'
Miss Kinsale hovered about the two, fluttering and making little sympathetic noises.
The practical Belle Rosen said, 'Look, Mrs Shelby, you should do what you think is right and Manny and I would stay with you, too . . .'
The hurt that Shelby had suffered in those few appalling seconds was such that it left him rigid and paralysed and rendered him unable to go to her.
Nor was Susan able to give her mother physical comfort at that moment, but rather stood regarding them both, a spectator looking upon two strangers. She was almost as bewildered as her father. How could her mother have been such a wonderful wife all those years, masking her feelings as she did? How could her father have been so blind as to the reality of the person living in his house with him? How could she herself never have known or suspected what her mother was really like, or for that matter, her father? The fall of the House of Shelby left her sympathies divided between her anguished mother and shattered father and the ridiculous thought that came to her mind was: Poor, conventional Dad! If he knew what had happened to me. . . !'
As swiftly as she had collapsed, Jane Shelby recovered and raised her face from her hands and in the light of their lanterns they saw that it was tearless.
'Oh no,' she said, in a voice that had suddenly gone flat with all tone and living timbre out of it, 'I'll come with you.' She pointed to Scott, 'That monstrous man is right. His duty is to the living and I suppose mine is too. I've held up all of you long enough. Let's go.'
That monstrous man Scott said without emotion, 'I'm sure that you have made a good decision, Jane, and a wise one.'
Of them all, Muller was perhaps the most pleased with Jane's decision. He had been too long in a situation far from his liking. He turned to Nonnie and whispered to her, 'You're a good girl.' In his heart he was wondering what Scott was made of, what it was that made him tick.
Susan went to her mother now, put her arms about her and said, 'Oh, Mother, I just don't know what to say.'
Jane was still quivering, sensitive to every minute radiation. She said to her daughter, 'I hope you'll never know what it's like to desert your child.'
The rebuke told, but the shaft did not wound where it was directed, but elsewhere to the heart of that new Susan who thought to herself, Oh, Lord, what if I have one?
Scott was already occupied with reorganizing. He said, 'I'll lead the way with one of the big lamps. Rogo will bring up the rear with another. That should give us enough light to save the spares. We're going through . . .' he hesitated for a second, 'what's left of the second boiler room. We shall need everything we've got to make it to the engine room.'
'And God's help,' put in Miss Kinsale.
Scott looked down upon her from his towering height and said, 'God is waiting on us. I don't believe in importuning, or deafening His ears. We've been given the strength to rely upon ourselves, we mustn't disappoint Him, must we?'
Miss Kinsale blinked like a child who has been reproved trying to hold back tears and answered, 'Oh yes, of course, you are so right, Dr Scott. If you put it that way . . .'
Muller was tempted to ask Scott about the lost boy, a staunch and courageous little fighter if ever he'd seen one, and so young. Where, as the first victim of their attempt to save themselves, did his loss fit into the Minister's theology? But he refrained. There had been enough talk.
But the interruption came from another source. Rogo said, 'The Limey and his girl aren't here.'
They had each with his own worries forgotten The Beamer and his friend Pamela.
Scott looked annoyed, 'Where are they?'
Linda giggled, 'Dead drunk.'
Martin said, 'They got into the liquor stores somehow.'
'Oh, lord!' said Shelby. 'If he's drunk, he . . .'
Scott asked, 'Have you seen them?'
'Yeah,' said Rogo. He, Martin and Scott detached themselves from the group and led by Rogo, made their way down to the storeroom where their torches picked up the figures of The Beamer and his girl much as they had been last seen, except that she now, too, was asleep.
Scott shook them both by the shoulder, but only Pamela woke up. She had the faculty upon waking of being instantly aware of where she was and of the situation. She said, 'Oh, I just dropped off for a minute.'
Martin asked, 'What about him?'
The gi
rl actually smiled at them and said, 'Oh, he won't wake up for hours. He had nearly a whole bottle of whisky.'
Scott looked down upon them angrily and swore. He asked Pamela, 'Why did you let him do it? Don't you realize he's finished? I'm afraid you'll have to leave him. We can't possibly handle him in this condition. We can't afford to wait, we've wasted enough time already.'
The plain girl ignored his question, glanced at The Beamer fondly for a moment and then looking up replied, 'Oh, I wouldn't leave him. I must be here when he wakes. He'll need me then.'
Martin pleaded, 'Look, miss, can't you see the jam he's got himself and all of us into? Are you going to throw yourself away for this guy?'
Pamela stared at him as though she did not understand the phrase. 'Throw myself away?' she repeated.