The Wintering

by Joan Williams

  Jeff’s toilet kit had a homeless air atop Alex’s dresser, which being cleared was ownerless-looking. Of some dark wood, the dresser did not take kindly to clutter. Searching for bobby pins somewhere in the bottom of her handbag, Amy had scattered the top with lipstick-dabbed Kleenex and other possessions: a pale blue wallet, a companionless earring, a rattail comb, a tiny brush. Reprimanded by the furniture’s heavy look, she stuck things back into her pocketbook hastily.

  After making little pin curls above each ear, she stood dead still, no longer really seeing herself in the mirror. Assuming she had changed her mind, Jeff made an offer. “If you’d prefer, I could make myself comfortable on the couch in the living room.”

  She bent then toward the mirror, dissatisfied, and redid the curls; her throat muscles seemed strained with the effort. Her hipbones pressed the dresser so ardently, she might have been holding it back against the wall. In a resigned way, her hands left the curls alone. “Why should you have to sleep on the couch? I should, if anyone does,” she said.

  Jeff, having undressed to his undershorts, had gotten into bed. Amy travelled back and forth to the bathroom, apparently able to remember only one thing at a time. She took the tiny brush and went away stroking her hair, then came back for the comb. A bedside clock had stopped, which Jeff wound and set. Leaning on an elbow, and pretending interest, he flipped through a publisher’s catalogue, on a table next to the bed. Amy came back in, to search again through her purse, which she then shoved against the mirror, a dead end.

  The catalogue was bound stiffly and falling shut seemed never to have been opened. Jeff set his reading glasses atop the bedside table. “Would you like for me to lie on top of the covers for a while?” he said.

  Amy dawdling beside the bed shook her head. Suddenly, her arms went up full-length on either side of her head, and she drew in her breath. Her back arched. A diver, she would have been about to plunge headfirst from a high board. Here, her hands clutched beneath either armpit, and she drew off her dress. She got in gingerly beneath the sheet; their heads turned instantly toward each other. For the first time, Amy did not look away from his close observation. But she was not stirred.

  “You’ve been yawning all evening,” he said.

  “I know it. I can’t help it. Aren’t you ready to sleep?”

  He said, “I’ll doze off and on. I don’t need many hours of sleep.”

  “I feel like you’ll be watching me.”

  “I will be,” he said, laughing.

  “It makes me feel funny.”

  “All right. I’ll close my eyes.”

  When his hand touched her, she stiffened. Behind closed eyes, she longed for some great emotion to take hold of her. She thought of movie scenes with limp heroines being lifted in strong arms, their hair streaming floorward. Sex, with Tony, was an experiment. She had wished he loved her, knowing she could not love him. It was always evident in the way he rolled off her and went to sleep immediately, that he never thought of her until the next time. She lay then wishful for love and staring into the darkness. Jeff’s hand moved cautiously. Her brain became alert. If only she could stop thinking. She remembered going to a birthday party where she had known none of the children, the hostess’s mother being a friend of Edith’s. When Edith left, the others drifted toward games. Then ice cream was served, and she had been revealed, still standing in the doorway, and had begun to cry. Edith had been summoned and arriving had said, “I’d be ashamed,” although she had thought her mother so beautiful, coming through the door, all she had longed for was never again to be left by her. Questioned at home, she remembered blurting out that she had not been to the bathroom for two days; then irritatedly Edith had said, “But why didn’t you tell me!”

  But how much, Amy thought, clenching her teeth against the feel of Jeff’s hand, she had never told anyone. Was she now responsible for feeling nothing? He was older and married and everything in her past told her what was happening was wrong. She cried silently, Don’t! with her teeth gritted. Her soul and her spirit were unmanageable and ungiving.

  He said, unexpectedly, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Having been about to move over her, he lay back. Opening her eyes, Amy was not sure exactly what had happened. Then she understood nothing had happened and, therefore, she need not feel guilt.

  Jeff said, “I had waited for you too long.”

  Never thinking to brush aside apology for what she had not wanted, and ignorant of anything she could have said or done, Amy slid down a little on her pillow and, shortly, fell asleep.

  Jeff coddled her, and she knew it. She did not blame herself for falling asleep, but him for leaving her behind. Where could he have gone? Waking, she felt deserted by his independence. The sun likely shone elsewhere. It could not penetrate the crevasse protuberant with fire escapes between Alex’s building and the surrounding ones. Her eyes came open. She saw first the furniture, shadowed and hostile-looking. Then, only her head moving slightly, she looked up toward the window, which emitted a solid greyness.

  I’m awake, Amy had thought, a little terrified. Fear was a continuous state of being, suspended briefly while she slept. She accepted its return. Slats of the venetian blind were unthoroughly closed; the shifty light gave her a sense of having been drugged. Beyond, the apartment seemed full of animosity, silent and soundless. Barely could she see in the dimness of the tiny hallway, which seemed confining as a boat. Reaching out, she touched the wall once, to stop some shaking in herself.

  Everywhere in the kitchen copper utensils had been hung, a decorator’s fine touch. They served as decoys, diverting attention from the fact that most of the drawers and cabinets were empty. Alex seldom ate at home. Perfected, the kitchen seemed an unused stage prop, particularly because of the stillness. Amy’s own sense, as she walked in, was of playing a part. Her face registered disbelief while she stared at the unshaven man, dispiritedly at the kitchen table, on which a whiskey bottle sat. Hollowly she spoke as if a memorized line: “You shouldn’t be drinking in the morning.” But because she was Amy, she added a little uncertainty even to that of which she was sure. “Should you?” she said.

  Jeff said he was sorry. Crumbs were not enough, after all. But she had gotten into bed with him! Amy said.

  “The whole time wishing you were not, Amy. Don’t you think I could see that? I don’t want pity.”

  “I don’t pity you,” she said. “And, please, don’t drink.”

  His head nodded but his hand seemed to have its own mind. He reached for his glass. Amy’s heels sank firmly, impressionably, upon the cork floor. Reaching him, she pressed a cheek to the top of his head, one hand shyly touched his back. “You’ve got to go outside,” she said. “You’ll be all right if you take a walk and eat.” The queasy feeling so often with her subsided unexpectedly. She was struck by the disappearance, like that of a close friend. How unlike her to have reached out, she thought. That she could offer only what she wanted might have enabled her to. Jeff set down the glass, understanding that she was trying.

  Speaking, she had mimicked her mother who made the same suggestions helping her father over a drinking spree. The words were familiar, the pattern was known; but to follow only what was set out for you limited life. Amy felt that strongly, now, after drawing back from Jeff more quickly than she had wanted. She sensed again she avoided full-blown relationships; the queasiness that had left her began to return.

  Coming out onto the broad avenue, though the sun settled on it stingily, Jeff looked better. He wavered, however, and took her arm. Noticeably, he had not shaved. The doorman was amused and unsuccessfully tried to hide a grin. But an older couple about to enter their Mercedes openly stared. Amy found then she had limits to her timidity and knew she was capable of loyalty. Wildly and publicly, if necessary, she would have defended Almoner’s right to be drunk on Sunday morning if he wanted to be. When he apologized for being a nuisance, she assured him he was not.

  In a restaurant, she placed a paper nap
kin in his saucer. Raising his cup shakily, he kept spilling coffee. The shop’s stuffiness gave his face a false healthy look, his cheeks pink. Unable to stand the stale air any longer, and putting down her protests, he insisted he could walk. Then within a few blocks, he had to admit she was right. Blindingly beyond them, a marquee drew Amy’s attention. Docilely, he allowed himself to be led toward it. The movie was the sort that not even Amy had heard of the stars. Predictably, Jeff fell asleep. His head dropped politely forward, as in a formal bow. She fit a cautious shoulder against him, pushing him enough upright that he did not appear to be sleeping. At the sound of snoring, people had turned. But it came from an open-mouthed bum a few seats down the row. Shifting her eyes, Amy directed their attention to the snoring’s source. The people looked past Jeff, without realizing that though he faced forward, he saw nothing. She endured the movie halfway through again, for his sake, then woke him.

  “Shall I take you downtown, now?” he said when they stood on the street.

  “I’d go alone. There wouldn’t be any sense in your having to make that trip,” she said. “But I’ll stay at Alex’s. I don’t trust you enough to leave you alone.”

  She came to bed less reluctantly and put her head on his shoulder. “Amy,” he said, “you’re the most dear and precious thing I’ve ever held in my arms. Does that embarrass you?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” he said. “I don’t want you ever to be embarrassed by sentiment. That’s one thing wrong with the world today.” He then whispered, “I’m afraid of failing you again, tonight. But someday I hope we’ll be as close as people can be. Poor baby. I keep trying to help free you of all your Sunday-school morality. On the other hand, I’m stuffing some back into your head, preaching. But, Amy, to give is to get back so much more.”

  She turned her face into his shoulder and said, “There’s something that’s been bothering me. I have to tell you, even though there’s no point to it now.”

  “There is. This is the time to tell everything, anything.”

  “My story about the lonely little girl burning sparklers on New Year’s Eve by herself was about me. It was true.”

  “Why, Miss Howard! You don’t mean to tell me,” he said softly.

  Leaning up on her elbow to look at him, she then laughed. “Oh, of course you knew. Why did I think you didn’t.” They looked at each other affectionately before Amy moved to her pillow.

  He said, “You are so quiet that I look at you to see if you’re still breathing when you’re asleep.”

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” Her voice was a little defensive. She had put up a guard, at once.

  “Yes, I sleep, too,” he said reassuringly. “Don’t worry. That capacity you have for privacy and silence is intact. I can’t take it away, even knowing you as I do.” The sheet settled over them both, as she relaxed beneath it. He said, “I’ve learned something about my life recently, too.” Immediately she was listening. “Everything I’ve done was for you, Amy, even when you were still in darkness. I know that now.”

  “Before I was born, you mean?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, even before you were born. It was all for you. I know that, now.”

  A call came urgently the next morning from the publisher’s. When could Jeff come in to see the copy editor? Amy thought he was too shaky to go; everyone would gossip about what was the matter. They went to a newsreel and roamed about that day, ending with a large dinner in an expensive restaurant. Amy did not quibble about the price since he needed to eat. She slept in the apartment again. After washing stockings, she hung them to dry over the shower rod. He came later from the bathroom and said, “I like seeing your things there, washed out. It makes living here together almost as if we were married.” She was surprised not only at how happy he looked, the incident seemed so small, but at the implied lack of intimacy in his life; and she must struggle not to freeze it out of hers.

  Reluctantly on the following morning, she said he ought to go, that a publisher could get mad even at Almoner. Jeff agreed a certain amount might be put up with from him but it was time for him to face up to working. She hid feeling peeved and left out and that her day was pointless. She combed and recombed her hair ruthlessly. Sticking in bobby pins, she pulled them out, moaning that she looked too terrible to go anywhere. Already with his hat on, Jeff sat down again. Patiently, he said that, as always, she looked beautiful to him. Why was he so patient! It annoyed her when he was the one who had to hurry. Knowing she had been trying to delay them, jamming the comb into her purse, Amy kept her annoyed look and urged him out. He was keeping people waiting.

  The publishing house was a gleaming new one with sepia windows in monotonous rows. On the site formerly had been an old and cherished building. Amy remembered the outcry when it had been torn down. She remarked snidely that such a building was helping to take away New York’s character. In the entranceway, when they faced a solid wall of aluminum elevator doors, she shuddered.

  Jeff said, somewhat shyly, “I like my going off to work this way, and you to do whatever it is women spend their days doing. And we are to meet again for the evening.”

  Amy was spared an answer, for people rushing toward the elevators separated them. A swarm of bees might have passed by. The buzzing subsided. “I may start a story today,” Amy said.

  “That’s good news,” he said. “And, listen, if you get hot on the typewriter you may not want to come back up here. Call me, and I’ll come down there.”

  “I doubt that’ll happen to me.” She managed to look worried. “I do have a lot of other things to do, too.”

  “Of course you do,” he said.

  “I have to—” but what was lost. A young man passing seemed to jam on brakes and whirled around. He introduced himself as Alex’s assistant, but scarcely acknowledged being introduced to Amy in return. He rushed immediately into telling Jeff how marvellous that he was in town. She had stared at him with interest, he was so handsome. He gave a brief apologetic nod before hurrying Jeff into an elevator. And there, Jeff turned his head attentively to the assistant’s conversation, his mind gone ahead to business in which Amy had no part. One instant, he looked back before the doors closed, making intact the solid sheenless aluminum wall. Even looking at her, Jeff’s eyes had reflected interest in what that snobby man was saying, and Amy had felt also a look of being sorry in them, as if she had been rushing toward the elevator, and he regretted not being able to keep the door open. And so she stood, as if she had missed it, watching the indicator rise. She was not going to just stand there watching it come down! The lobby seemed a tomb, deserted. Whoever ran the magazine stand was busy someplace else, missing anyway. She stood to buy gum, but no one came to wait on her. She went fruitlessly out to the street and with a twinge of envy and jealousy wondered what a copy editor did.

  Along Fifth Avenue, the stores seemed monumentally old and grotesque and grey and bulging. She could pretend no reason for going to her room. There the day would pass as if she had a fogged memory, with nothing to recall later. Apart from the crowd, she stood beneath a canopied window and apparently looked strange, for several people looked back at her. She had seen too much of New York to go sightseeing. Then she remembered, happily, that she had never sent the pigskin gloves her mother had wanted. Much as Edith would, Amy wandered between counters, looking, touching merchandise for no reason. The right gloves were found after a thorough search. She had waited until the rush hour for lunch and had to stand an inordinate amount of time in line at a luncheonette; the afternoon had almost passed. Then, after eating, she thought of not having started the story, as she had told Jeff she might. Beside the restaurant’s uninteresting front window—some lackadaisical hand had jammed a bunch of paper flowers into a pot as an adornment, once a spring collection, now bleached colorless by the sun—Amy thought life worked this way, that if fate had meant her to start a story, she would have had an inspiration. It was some indeterminate late-afternoon hour when lethargy settled over the
city. A typist looked down, sleepily, from an office across the way. About to sweep, a man bolted the luncheonette’s door behind Amy. The lucrative hours of the day were over. Buses went by, actually empty. A pigeon ventured to a curb. At Alex’s, she would have nothing to do but wait for Jeff. It seemed pointless to go downtown and come back up for dinner. The man stood behind the door, his hand on the bolt and the other clutching his broom, and stared at her, puzzled. She darted toward the pallid pigeon in a vengeful manner, but so that no one else noticed, and sent it purposefully skyward.

  Squatly above the subway entrance, a sign gave directions uptown or down. Ducking her head not to notice how arrows pointed, Amy intended to let fate determine her way. Only when the train glided noisily through the tunnel did she look out a window to see the dreamlike sequence of platforms passing. People stared back as she headed toward the Village. After even a brief absence, she felt it more than ever like a carnival. From the top of the subway steps, streets spoked in many directions. Each would take her home. Again, she let an outside factor decide. Halfway down a block, she saw Tony playing handball against a building, jogging this way and that after an old tennis ball. Missing a bounce and waving as she came toward him, he gave her a hard look.

  “I had to go uptown to see some friends from home,” she said, only half-apologetically. “I had to get dressed up.”