by Alice Adams
And so they lie there, slowly touching each other, meeting gently in a kiss.
Grace finds this beautiful. His body is incredibly beautiful.
They decide to marry. Grace is radiant.
To Alex the whole thing is very embarrassing. “I never really would have thought—” he says to Sally; he is flushed, and serious veins throb in his forehead. “I mean, can’t she see—or didn’t anyone say to her—”
“I’m not sure,” Sally says softly. “You know I haven’t seen her for years.”
“But doesn’t she know—I hate to see poor Grace exploited like this,” he at last bursts out. “By some—some queer, in fact a Jewish queer. Christ, he’s even changed his name.”
Andrew Chapin and Isabel, his wife, have somewhat more literary conversations about the same thing. “Of course, the point of interest, as I see it,” Andrew says, “would be Grace’s attitude toward his history.”
“Maybe she pretends it isn’t there?” Isabel is very bright, and Andrew has increased her confidence.
He is impressed. “You’re very intuitive,” he says, not for the first time. “How like Grace that would be. Just the way she used to pretend that Allison wasn’t crazy.”
Encouraged, Isabel goes on. “And of course if Grace is successful in her pretending she will help him erase that past. He can breathe easily, so to speak.”
“Exactly.”
This conversation takes place at breakfast. Pretty young Isabel is still in her rumpled yellow robe, her face shiny, unmade-up; her habits are fortunately quite unlike those of the former Sally Chapin. Now Andrew reaches around to kiss her soft mouth. These two people like each other very much.
Martin Walters and his brother Michael Wasserman have an odd relationship—odd in that they almost never see each other; what contact they have takes place over the phone. And it is almost always Michael who phones, who has felt some lonely lack—a need for his brother. Michael in fact would like to talk about their family, to recreate and endlessly interpret those dynamics: “What do you suppose their sex life was really like? She must have been frigid, don’t you think? You know, really Louisa was more of a father figure for me—” But Martin (understandably enough) will have less and less of this. And Persephone comforts Michael: “He’s transferred his ambivalence about his father onto you.”
After Martin’s marriage the two brothers talk even less; for one thing (perhaps unconsciously), they would both want to avoid the broad humor implicit in the fact of fat rich wives for both of them. (What does this mean?) And, curiously, Michael is at his meanest when speaking of Grace. “Good old Grace,” he says. “I always knew those big cans of hers were misleading. She could be in drag herself.”
Fat Persephone, who adores him, laughs at this.
“Of course the real point,” Michael tells her, “is whether or not he can get it up with women.”
This is another “good marriage.” (Is there someone for everyone?)
From Victoria, Grace and Martin take the boat down to Seattle, among the beautiful dark wooded islands, the San Juan straits. In Seattle they are to separate for twenty-four hours. This is Martin’s idea, which Grace does not like. But he wants to see to the installation of all the things in their new Green Street house before she does. He insists. “It has to be perfect before you see it, love.”
“But suppose something’s wrong, something you have to fix: am I supposed to spend a week in Seattle?”
He laughs lightly, and with great affection. “No, my darling. We’ll meet and fly to Mexico for a week, in that case.”
Reassured, she wanders around Seattle for a day, buying presents for everyone: her daughters, Allison and Jennifer, mainly for Martin. (In her happiness she has almost forgotten where Allison is.)
Of course they telephone to each other that night. Martin’s voice is excited; she could almost believe him drunk, except that she knows he hardly drinks at all.
He has what strikes Grace as a rather curious plan. “This may seem very unchivalrous,” he says—sounding Southern, which at times he does. “But would you take a cab from the airport to Green Street? Just come right here?”
“You won’t meet me?” She is disappointed, even hurt.
“Darling, love—I want to watch you walk into your house.”
She does; she walks into her house. She sees shining chrome, gray suède and polished oak, patterned velvet, heavy wicker, heavy wool carpeting. Paintings, bronzes. Flowers—spring flowers in bowls placed everywhere. She sees Martin—she runs to him and hides her face against his tweed. She cries, she repeats and repeats his name.
It is a marriage that continues to be discussed. A year later there are still snickers among some of Martin’s former friends. (Actually he had quite a lot of friends—or semi-friends, if true friends are only those who wish one well.) They giggle about Grace’s weight; they predict young boys within a year for Martin. (Inaccurately: he remains almost religiously faithful to Grace.)
Martin and Grace see even less of Michael and Persephone—which, except for lingering in vestigial guilts, is fine with everyone.
After one meeting (a characteristic failure: a smart French restaurant to which Michael has refused to wear a tie, and only Martin’s “pull” gets them in) Persephone complains, “He makes her so childish—he encourages Grace to be a little girl.” (Which is perhaps what Persephone would like, in part, to be, and which is not at all the role that Michael assigns to her.)
Michael answers, “Of course he wants her to be a child; what on earth would Martin do with a grown-up woman?”
(It is not fair to say, as Louisa sometimes does, that Michael is totally imperceptive.)
Alex Magowan remains outraged. Just below the surface of his mind is a sense of Martin as a threat to his own manhood, his own virility: how could Grace, who was married to him, go on to that?
His youngest daughter, Jennifer, tries to explain. Over and against his mutterings she says, “Father, you’re entirely missing the point. Martin is extremely nice to Mother. He made that fabulous house for her, he keeps it filled with flowers, he brings her presents—”
“But with her money—it’s all her money!”
“So what? What does it matter whose money it is? The point is,” Jennifer repeats, “the point is that mother is very happy. She’s never been happier in her life.”
And Jennifer is absolutely right: Grace has never been so happy in her life.
Twelve / 1969
The grounds are beautifully kept; people always notice and mention the grounds, as though they had expected something else. Green lawns, even and stretching out to distances, trimmed green shrubbery and tidy trees. Eucalyptuses would make a mess, and besides in a wind they are noisy.
Allison is waiting. A list of people are coming to see her this afternoon. Her father, called Father, and Alex, who is her mother’s former husband. Her mother speaks sadly of “Alex.” And Mrs. Chapin and Sally and her father’s wife, Mrs. Alexander Magowan.
“How many does that make?” Allison asks her friend Mary, who is waiting on the bench with her.
“Two. Three at most,” says Mary.
Mary is extremely fat, and Allison wishes that she would go away. It is too hot to be with such a heavy friend. And she herself is so excruciatingly thin. She is aware that they look silly together. They sit on the white concrete bench where Allison has said that she would meet her people, two contrasting girls in the overwhelming September noon, in Napa, California.
Where are all the people who are coming? Allison looks at all the slowly passing cars, who are looking at her, but there are no cars with groups. People seem to come in twos. Mary has gone, perhaps melted. It is hot enough.
Two people are coming toward Allison on the sidewalk. An angry man, and a woman at his heels. At his heels? Both people are tanned, darkly tanned, as though from vacations, or boats; they both have sun-bleached hair. Possibly they are related. Allison knows the man, although she has forgotten his name.<
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“Allison! What are you doing here? I told you we’d meet you at the—uh—dormitory. We’ve been waiting there for half an hour.”
Or perhaps she doesn’t know him.
“Darling, it’s all right, we’ve found her,” the woman says in an exceptionally soft voice. “Allison, dear, how are you?” She comes very close to Allison, smelling sweet, a little too sweet.
Loudly her father, whose name is Alexander Magowan, says, “You remember Sally?”
“Mrs. Chapin?”
“Yes, of course she used to be Mrs. Chapin, but you remember, we got married two years ago, and now she’s Mrs. Magowan—Sally.”
“Sally,” says Mrs. Chapin-Magowan softly.
Mary is right, and all those people—those visitors—are only two. The truth often turns out to be so simple, simple and boring and ultimately to be resisted.
“Well,” says Father, “how about coming out to lunch with us? I got your—uh—pass.” He hates it that Allison is here.
“My, what lovely grounds,” says Mrs. Chapin-Sally.
In New Hampshire, where Allison lived with her mother, the birch trees littered the grass with leaves and peelings.
They are walking toward her father’s car. “Oh, a new car,” says Allison.
No longer angry—in fact very pleased and surprised that she has noticed—Father says, “Yes, you like it? I really don’t think you can beat the Germans when it comes to making cars.”
Beat the Germans?
Allison gets into the back seat, her own wide space of dark new leather. Far apart in the front seat are her father and Sally Chapin, who has three children, boys. Allison has a brother, Douglas, who is up at school in Oregon, Reed College. He writes her letters. He is crazy. People believe that he is interested in history; it is clear to Allison that he only likes wars. His madness is her private treasure.
“Where would you like to go for lunch? Do you know a place?”
“Oh, anywhere. I still don’t eat very much.”
Father clears his throat. “Your—uh—mother was here last week?”
Allison concentrates. “I think so.” Her mother’s name is Grace. Mary, who was once a Catholic, thinks that is very funny. “Mary full of Grace,” says Mary. “I am full of your mother. That’s enough to make anyone fat. Perhaps I am your mother.”
Smiling at the thought of Mary, Allison says, “Grace.”
“That’s right,” says Sally softly. “Grace. Grace and Martin. Grace is married to Martin. Did he come up with her?”
“There seems to be a lot of marrying going on,” says Allison, more loudly than she meant to. But there are too many names. She decides that there should not be names; names are boundaries separating people, preventing a confluence from one into another.
Then still another name comes into her mind, and she asks, “Who is Andrew?”
Sally’s face pinkens. “Andrew used to be my husband, when you knew us both a long time ago. Then we were divorced, and I married your father, Alex.” Why does she speak so softly? Is she ashamed of what she is saying?
They cross a river on a narrow bridge. The water is thickly lined with leaning trees, willows and whispering eucalyptuses. Free boys stand beside the water with fishing poles, but they will never catch anything.
In New Hampshire, Allison and her mother, Grace, went endlessly for walks, endlessly up and down those hard white roads, past sweet meadows with stone fences, past dark secret woods. Grace thought enough walking would cure anything, but she was wrong. It didn’t even develop an appetite in Allison. So that now she is here.
Her brother Douglas writes mad letters to his sister Allison. “All the scruffy longhairs around here hope we’ll be out of the fighting soon,” he writes. “Not me. I’m heading for the Marine Corps. I want to be permanently a Marine.” Douglas has been studying the forties, that war; he believes that now is then. It is clear to Allison that he is quite mad; in fact she carries the madness of Douglas within her. She is pregnant with her brother’s madness, although it doesn’t show.
Her father, Alex, and his wife, Sally Chapin, have come to tell her something, perhaps about Douglas. They are burdened with a heavy message to give her. Their faces sag with some oppressive knowledge.
“—eat here?” They have stopped at a shopping center, in front of a restaurant that says “SMORGASBORD.” They won’t like it inside because there are no drinks. Allison was here with some other people last week. Grace and someone. Mary full of Grace?
“Okay,” says Allison.
They go inside and sit down.
“You have to get up and get a tray and walk around with it,” Allison tells them.
“Oh?” They are very interested. “You were here before?”
Dishonestly she points to a sign. “Over there. It says.”
“Oh.” Disappointed.
They do what the sign says. (What Grace said—Grace and Martin?) They put indistinguishable things onto their plates.
Father asks, “How’s the food at the—uh—hospital?”
“It’s really lousy.”
“Darling, for a minute she sounded exactly like you!” Mrs. Chapin sounds like herself, soft and very surprised.
But what is remarkable about that? They are all the same person: how should they sound?
Today, even more than usual, Douglas keeps flashing into Allison’s mind. Douglas everywhere, all ages and sizes of Douglas. Small Douglas, on top of a fence.
“No drinks, I guess,” says Alex, her father. His red-tan face darkens.
“Darling, it’s possibly just as well?” Sweet Sally.
“Did Douglas jump off the fence that time, or fall?” asks Allison.
“He jumped,” says Alex, his face suddenly full of some terrible pain.
“Not now,” Sally murmurs, and she touches his hand.
At the other tables are other people whom Allison has seen before. Perhaps some of them are also patients who are out for lunch with their visitors? Alex and Sally wonder this, too, but they are too polite to ask.
Since they have one definite thing to say to her, but have decided to postpone its saying, it is hard for Alex and Sally Chapin-Magowan to talk to Allison. She would like to help them out but she is not sure how.
“I have a friend named Mary,” she tells them.
“Oh, really. Isn’t that nice.”
But there again they are stopped. They can’t think of a further thing to ask about Mary, because what they really would like to know about Mary is what’s wrong with her; why is she here?
Allison tries to tell them. “I guess we both sort of fit into the landscape there,” she says. They don’t know what she means, but they are afraid to say so. “Mary is extremely fat,” she explains. Then she thinks of “full of Grace,” and she begins to laugh.
They smile sadly at her, thinking, She is not getting any better.
In fact, the time that Douglas jumped, they were all there: Sally and Andrew Chapin and their three boys; and Alex Magowan and Grace, his wife, and their three children, Douglas and Allison and Jennifer. Jennifer?
“Jennifer?” Allison asks.
“Oh, Jennifer’s just fine. She’s finishing up at Miss Hamlin’s and then she’s thinking about Stanford.”
“I don’t remember her terribly well,” says Allison, wanting to be honest.
“Your sister?” They try to believe what she has said.
“I remember Douglas all the time.”
Her father pours milk into his coffee. “Douglas—had an accident,” he says.
What they are going to tell her will not necessarily be true.
“He was skiing,” says Alex slowly.
“What is ‘skiing’?” Allison asks politely.
“What is skiing? Allison, Squaw Valley—we went there every year.” He turns to Sally, to his wife. “I know it’s beside the point, but do you have any idea what it costs these days to take three kids skiing for a week?” Back to Allison, he wildly continues. “Ski
ing—snow, going down mountains. You do remember?”
She remembers something: cold, being afraid. But she has to resist. “Not really,” she says, very softly. (Is she turning into Sally, Mrs. Chapin; into her father’s wife?)
Her father and Sally Chapin look at each other. “Maybe not now,” says Mrs. Chapin. “After all, we’ve waited this long—”
Relief rises in Allison’s throat, but it has the taste of bile.
And there is still the problem of conversation. “I have a friend named Mary,” Allison says before she remembers having already said that. “She’s been there much longer than I have.” She did not tell them that before; she is sure of it.
They try to look interested. “Much longer?”
“Three months longer.” This could quite possibly be true, but it was the wrong thing to say: how can she be sure of a number when she doesn’t know what skiing is? “Of course I could be wrong,” she adds, and then this strikes her as very funny, and she laughs “inappropriately.”
“Well, shall we go? Everyone had enough?”
Their pushed chairs make a very loud noise on the restaurant floor. Three chairs.
“Is this a new car?” asks Allison, but this time they are not pleased at her question—of course not.
“Yes.” Her father frowns, with no mention of beating Germans.
They all get into the car. They take off.
Alex and Sally. Grace and Martin. Musingly Allison says these name combinations over to herself. Allison and Douglas. Who?
They again pass the river, the messy eucalyptus trees. The boys fishing there.
Her father, who has given up telling Allison anything, now would like to ask her something. He clears his throat. “Do they say anything to you about—uh—getting out?”
His question for an instant terrifies Allison. Out? In her new soft voice, she asks him, “Where is out?”