She said, “You’re very considerate.”
“And you’re very vulnerable.”
“Does it show that much?”
“Is the Grand Canyon a ditch?”
“It was just …” she set out, stopping almost at once because the words weren’t there. “… So complete,” she started again. “I didn’t want … didn’t need anybody else. Neither did he. Which is what makes it worse because now he isn’t here any more there’s nothing. Just emptiness, like a hole I can’t climb out of …” Exactly that, she thought: she had buried herself.
“Don’t,” said Sheridan, gently. “Leave it.”
“Let me.”
“You sure?”
Janet nodded, jerkily, eyes down on her drink again. She started to tell him, stumbling again at the beginning until the surroundings receded, going right back to Oxford where they’d met, she reading Modern History and Hank—whom she called Henry now, as she had in those early days—was studying law. Strangely there was no embarrassment telling this calm, unmoving stranger how Hank had moved in with her after four months and how she’d followed him back to America after they’d both graduated. She talked of the luck they’d had in his getting a position with the downtown law firm on 13th Street and of her own matching good fortune in getting a place—low in the pecking order at first—in the Middle East division at Georgetown University where she was now a senior lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies.
“There was no warning,” she said, bitterly. “Nothing. And he’d always been so fit. He’d always worked out in England and he jogged when we came back here and we played tennis most weekends in the summer. It was just tiredness at first and we didn’t think anything of it because he was working so hard, trying to prove himself in a new job. But it got worse and then he started to lose a lot of weight …” Janet gulped at her drink, needing a break in the narrative. “Did you know there isn’t any pain, with cancer of the liver?”
Sheridan shook his head.
“That was another obscenity, along with so much else,” she said. “He just faded away. Literally. Every day he seemed to get smaller, like he was collapsing inside. Which he was, I guess. We tried everything, of course: went to all the experts about a transplant which they said wasn’t possible because it had been discovered too late to prevent the spread. I said I still wanted it done and they said he was too weak by then: that he could not withstand the shock of surgery …” She drank again. “So we just waited. That was the worst part, the thing I couldn’t take. The helplessness. Just having to wait and accept there was nothing I could do … nothing that anyone could do. My mother came across towards the end and we just sat around and watched … that was all we could do. Can you imagine what that was like …”
“No,” said the man. “I don’t think I can.”
“Do you want to hear something ridiculous?” Janet stretched out both hands, palms upwards, and said: “When he was so wasted away that I could pick him up like this, like a baby, I decided it wasn’t going to happen. I convinced myself that it was going to go away, as quickly as it had come, and that he was going to get better again and we were going to go on just like we were before. Have the baby we’d talked about and that he would start his own law firm, which was another plan: make a lot of money so we could move to Chevy Chase …” Janet laughed, bitterly. “Can you imagine that! On the day he died, the Friday, I couldn’t cry because I was too angry: I told my mother there’d been a mistake …” She gave another humorless, head-shaking laugh, unable to believe it herself.
“But you didn’t go back to England?”
Janet looked up at the man, caught by how quick he was, how direct. She nodded and said: “My family wanted me to. Wanted me to get a job at a university or an institute there; put America behind me. I almost went but then I thought about it and somehow it seemed like giving up. Does that sound funny?”
“Maybe,” Sheridan said. “Maybe not.”
“Anyway!” she said, with forced briskness. “I didn’t go and here I am. And that’s it, the story of Janet Stone.”
They looked at each other for several moments and then Sheridan said: “I can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound trite.”
“Thanks for not trying,” said Janet. She was abruptly astonished at herself. She hadn’t talked to anyone like this, not to Harriet and not even, she didn’t think, to her mother. Was it because he was a stranger, someone completely uninvolved and unaffected? She felt embarrassed. But not, she realized in further surprise, anything else. No ache at the memories, no pain. The feeling of embarrassment worsened.
“Do you want another drink?” asked Sheridan.
“No, thank you,” she said at once. Was that why she’d talked so much, because of the whisky? Of course not. She said: “You go ahead, if you want one.”
“No,” he said. “I’m fine.” He looked around them and then out into the street. “Have you eaten? Georgetown seems to have cornered the market in restaurants.”
“No, thank you.” She’d done enough, said enough. This was an early outing, after all.
“OK.” He smiled his crooked smile at her, open-faced, and said: “I guess it’s time to go then?”
“I guess so,” she said.
Outside the street was again completely devoid of taxis.
“Isn’t it always the way?” He shrugged.
“Like I said, it won’t take long to pick one up.”
“My car really is close,” said Sheridan. “Practically at the junction of Dumbarton and Wisconsin.”
Janet looked unsuccessfully in every direction and then said: “That would be kind.”
It was a Volkswagen, a Beetle, an inconspicuous gray car matching the inconspicuous man. Although it was dark there was sufficient light from the Wisconsin Avenue illumination for Janet to see the interior was immaculate and very clean.
“Where to?” he said.
“Rosslyn.”
Janet began worrying as they drove over Key Bridge, trying to push the concern away by the reassurance of the evening so far. There had not been any furtive hand-on-the-knee, my-place-or-yours nonsense. He’d actually held back, at every opportunity. So it would be overreacting to become frightened now. Janet recognized, in a further revelation of the evening, she was in a situation she didn’t know how to handle: had forgotten how to handle. For as long as she seemed able to remember Hank had always been with her, always there, controlling everything and keeping her safe. But Hank wasn’t here any more. And she was being driven back to an obviously empty apartment by a man she knew only by name—if that was his real name—and a vague reference to the State Department. The apprehension began to burn through her and she felt the perspiration wet on her face and wetter still on her back. She shifted in her seat, edging closer to the passenger door.
“What’s the matter?” Sheridan asked, conscious of her movement.
“Nothing.” Janet felt stupid, childlike.
“You’ll have to guide me,” he said, as they crossed the parkway into Rosslyn.
She directed him to the apartments at Radnor Heights. Her uncertainty increased when he opened his door as he turned off the engine, walking around the front of the Volkswagen to let her out. Momentarily Janet hesitated and then swung herself from the vehicle. Her apartment was in the first of a matching block of three, each with its wide, open-planned vestibule before the elevator bank screened first by the doorman and then by a security clerk-cum-telephonist behind the mail counter. Janet walked with her hands tight beside her, knowing what she was expected to say but unsure whether she could bring herself to say it.
She stopped just before the main entrance, turning to face him, making him stop too. Sheridan kept a distance between them.
“Would you like to come in for a drink?” she said, with great effort.
“No thank you,” he said at once.
Janet just stopped herself from blurting out her surprise. Instead she said: “I enjoyed the evening: the last part, any
way. Thanks for saving me from the party.”
“I enjoyed it as well: I think we saved each other.”
“Good night then,” she said, hoping he would not try to kiss her.
“Good night,” he said, making no move. “I’ll stay here until you’re safely inside.”
Which he did. Janet looked back as she entered the elevator and he was still there, and when she entered her fifth-floor apartment, at the front of the building, she went immediately to the window and stared down. There was no sign of the unobtrusive man or his unobtrusive car, neither in the parking lot nor in either direction on the passing road: John Sheridan seemed able to disappear as easily as he materialized.
He had not asked for her telephone number, Janet realized. Or if he could see her again. She did not know what she would have said if he’d suggested either.
3
It was an established ritual—one of the few outings she allowed herself—for them to have Sunday brunch at the American Cafe on the Hill, but Janet half expected Harriet to call off, pleading the previous night’s party but she didn’t. She was late, though, as usual. She flustered in fast enough to create a breeze in her wake, not pausing to be shown her seat because she was confident Janet would have gotten their customary table, close to the wall at the back. Harriet was wearing button-fly 501 jeans and loafers and a poncho, and her hair was still bubbled as it had been the previous night. Her face was scrubbed completely clean of makeup. Harrriet was talking before she actually sat down, a breathless litany of who’d screwed whom and who hadn’t screwed whom and who’d been caught and who’d got away with it. She complained that someone called Jake or Geoff, she wasn’t sure which, had been a disaster and couldn’t get it up and tried to blame the booze but said she didn’t think it was booze at all but that he’d been a momentarily reluctant gay trying to pretend that he wasn’t.
“Can you imagine it, an experiment to prove his fucking manhood! Literally! At my own party!”
“I think you’re silly, taking the risks you do.”
They both ordered eggs Benedict and Bloody Marys and Harriet said: “I don’t.”
“Too many,” insisted Janet. “You don’t even know his name, for Christ’s sake! What if he is gay? Or bisexual?”
“Believe me, darling,” said Harriet. “The only thing I risked catching last night was a cold, hanging around waiting for something to happen that never did.”
“I still think you’re mad.”
“You should see the house! It looks like the Red Army went through in a hurry, without saying excuse me.”
“Would you like me to come back to help this afternoon?” asked Janet. The lecture was still only half-written, she remembered.
“Forget it,” Harriet said. “Mrs. Barrett comes in tomorrow: I’ll slip her an extra ten dollars.”
Harriet worked as a senior administrative assistant for a Virginia senator who thought an Englishwoman on his staff conveyed the impression of European culture and indicated an awareness of international affairs. Janet wondered if her friend’s brittleness were necessary for the job. Politely she said: “I thought it was a great party.”
They held back for the drinks to be replaced and Harriet said: “You ducked it, without saying goodbye!”
“I didn’t think you’d miss me. And I didn’t duck it. I was there for over an hour.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What happened, that’s well what?”
Janet was conscious of blushing, positively red-faced. She hadn’t thought Harriet had seen her leave. “We had a drink, that’s all.”
Harriet reached across the table, covering Janet’s hand with hers. “Darling!” she said. “This isn’t headmistress’s question time. I think it’s wonderful you found a guy and had a drink. It’s about time. There’s no reason to get embarrassed.”
Janet smiled and said: “I just don’t find it easy.”
“You’re going to have to learn, my love. Life goes on. But yours hasn’t, for far too long. You’re so vulnerable—so innocent—it almost hurts. You’re like a virgin in a whorehouse: I worry about you crossing roads!”
How recently would remarks like that have irritated her, wondered Janet, unperturbed. She said: “How well do you know him?”
“Not at all. He mean anything to you?”
“Of course not!” said Janet.
“OK, so I can be honest. I thought he was a boring asshole. He spent all night propping up the wall with one drink in his hand, talking to no one.”
Like me, thought Janet: did Harriet Andrew secretly think she was a boring asshole, too? Janet said: “His name’s John Sheridan.”
“That much I know.”
“And he’s not really boring,” Janet added, defensively.
“Sorry!” said Harriet, archly, stretching the word like elastic.
“Why did you invite him, if you don’t like him?”
“A research assistant on the senator’s staff knows him: they belong to some racquet club or something,” said Harriet, staring into her glass as if she were surprised to find its contents gone. “I wanted to make the numbers match and told this guy to bring another man. His choice was Sheridan: a mistake that won’t be repeated.” She smiled. “Celibate women like us need alternatives: I’m going to have another. How about you?”
Janet shook her head. “I’ll pass. He said he worked in State.”
Harriet was screwed around in her seat, trying to catch the waitress’s eye. “Something like that,” she said, succeeding in her attempt and turning back to the table. “And don’t ask because I don’t know if he’s married or not.”
“He said he’s not,” Janet remembered. “But it doesn’t matter whether he is or he isn’t, does it?”
“That’s what they all say, darling,” Harriet said cynically. “But no, if it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter. Cheers.”
Janet consciously let the conversation move away from John Sheridan. Harriet was organizing part of the senator’s staff to visit NATO headquarters in Brussels, and she gabbled on about the clothes she was having to buy and of the hoped-for sideways trip to Paris and said wouldn’t it be terrific if they could meet up in London when Janet made her twice-yearly visit to her parents and Janet agreed it would but warned she had not made any definite travel plans at the moment. She joined Harriet with another Bloody Mary and offered again to help clean up the Dumbarton Street house and Harriet waved away the suggestion as she had before.
It was almost three o’clock before they got up to leave, Harriet snatching up the bill and refusing any contribution from Janet. Outside they walked without any intentional direction towards the Capitol Building.
“What are you going to do for the rest of the day?” asked Harriet.
“I’ve got a lecture to finish off for tomorrow.”
“Much?”
“An hour or two, maybe.”
“You can always make up a couple of hours,” urged Harriet. “Why don’t we take in a movie? Maybe a drink afterwards? You can work later.”
Janet shook her head. “You know how it is.”
Her friend sighed in reply. “The dedicated Janet Stone, pillar of Washington academia!”
“I like always being on top of things,” said Janet, defensive again. “You know that.”
“You sure you get sufficient recognition for all you do at that damned university?”
“Yes,” said Janet. “And it isn’t a damned university. It’s got very high standards.” She’d worked as determinedly when Hank was alive—anxious then for the promotion and extra money that was so important for their plans—and now she needed the time-consuming, after-hours preparation work and the difficulty with students and being imposed upon for opinions by other Middle East lecturers to block out the sterility of the other parts of her life.
The Capitol dome was very clear now, starkly white and almost artificial in its perfection, more like a decoration than the seat of the most powerful leg
islature in the world.
“With your ability and qualifications you could get a hell of a job there,” Harriet said, gesturing towards the administration building. “Ever thought about it?”
“No,” said Janet.
“Why don’t you? You’d probably double your salary.”
“I’m happy enough where I am,” said Janet. And safe, she thought. No longer being safe—no longer having someone she could completely rely on to protect and take care of her—had been one of Janet’s worst and most persistent fears after Hank’s death. And secretly—so secretly that she’d admitted it to no one—it still was. She kept the Rosslyn apartment despite its painful memories because she felt safe and cocooned in it and it was the need for such a feeling that had been her major reason for resisting her parents’ demands that she return to England. She wanted always now to be with things and in places that were familiar. Safe: like hideaway holes.
Harriet smiled sideways. “You want me to ask around?”
“Ask about what?”
“John Sheridan, who props up walls and nurses one drink.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Janet said as forcefully as she could. “I had a drink with a shy man, a lonely man … lonely like me. OK? No drama. No nothing. Just that.”
“What happened after the drink?”
“Less than happened with your starch-free gay.”
“He didn’t make a pass?”
“No.”
“Ask for your number?”
“No.”
“Ask if he could see you again?”
“No.”
Harriet sighed, heavily. “Isn’t life sometimes a bucket of shit?”
“Yes,” Janet agreed. “More often than not life is a bucket of shit.”
They stopped by the side of the enormous building, able from the top of the hill to gaze out over Washington and its orderly patterns of grassed malls and reflecting pools and museums and monolithic monuments to past presidents.
“I really could get you fixed up with a terrific job,” Harriet said.
“I’ll stay where I am.” For how long? Janet wondered. Forever? Why not? There was nothing else for her to do.
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