“Claude, you’re being perfectly obnoxious,” Gillian said.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Cooper said, his goodwill quickly thinning. “I get a lot of jabs from people who have preconceived ideas about the field.”
“Shall we order?” I said. The waiter had just reappeared, and not a moment too soon. “Gillian, you go first.” I wanted this conversation to end; in fact I wanted this whole evening to be over, although I knew, with a sick feeling in my stomach, what awaited me later: harangues about Victoria Langley and probably much worse.
“I’ll have the veal scaloppini with mixed vegetables,” said Gillian. She looked pissed.
“That sounds delicious,” said Cooper. “I might have the same thing, but it’s Katie’s turn next.”
“I’d like the homemade fettuccini with your ragu Bolognese,” I told the waiter.
“Wow, that sounds like a good choice,” Cooper said. “Maybe I’ll go that route, too.”
“It is excellent,” confided the waiter, and his smile was like a blessing.
“You’re kidding, Katie,” Claude said. “That’s much too rich for you. You’d be better off with a chicken paillard and a salad with dressing on the side.”
“Good God, how ridiculous!” Gillian said. “Katie should order whatever she wants.”
“Oh, is that what you think?” Claude said. He slurred his words a little. “How kind of you to share your opinion, and now why don’t you just keep it to yourself, you and your witch-doctor boyfriend.” He looked up at the waiter and said, “My wife will have the chicken paillard and a salad.”
“Don’t do that,” Gillian said.
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t order for Katie.” She turned to me. “Katie, why don’t you order for yourself? It’s your dinner. It’s your life.”
Cooper said, “Gillian, look, I think maybe we should—”
“Stay out of it, Gillian. It’s none of your goddamn business,” Claude said.
“It was such a lovely evening,” I said. “Let’s not fuss about the food. And I do like chicken paillard, and probably the ragu would’ve been too heavy.” I looked up at the waiter, whose unhappy expression made my heart sink even lower. My voice sounded airy in my ears, I couldn’t breathe easily, and I felt panicky – both stuck to my seat and about to fly out of it. The faces at the table were going in and out of focus. “Please excuse me,” I said. I lurched to my feet and headed for the ladies’ room.
At the sink, I splashed cold water on my face and tried to calm down. Within seconds, Gillian appeared.
“Katie, what is going on?” she said.
I dried my face on a paper towel. “Nothing!” I said. “Cooper’s awfully nice,” I added, irrelevantly.
“Yes, he is, but I think in about a minute he’s going to punch Claude in his Gallic nose. Something’s really wrong here, Katie. You’re in trouble. Talk to me. Let me help you.”
“I’m fine,” I said dully.
“Does he hurt you?”
“What?”
“Physically. Hurt you, hit you. I know he hurts you emotionally. But ever since you told me the story of the mirror, I’ve never forgotten it. That was a long time ago, and I can only wonder, seeing Claude’s behavior tonight, what else he’s up to.”
She looked me up and down. “If you lifted your blouse,” she said, “would I find bruises under there?”
“What?”
I could hardly breathe, and the panic was pressing on my chest like a hot hand. I was terrified that Gillian was going to reach out and lift my blouse to see, and then the truth would come out, like all the bad things that flew out of Pandora’s box and could never be put back in again. I instinctively wrapped my arms around myself and tried to slow my breathing.
“Does he hit you?”
“Does he what?”
“There’s my answer,” she said softly. “Oh, Katie, you have to get away. Move in with me, you and Rose, until you figure things out – at least you’d be safe.”
“No way am I dragging you into this, Gillian, and jeopardizing your career – anyway, it would never work – it’s all fine, Gillian, I swear.”
“You are making no sense,” she said. “Your husband is controlling your mind and beating you up, and you’re terrified. I knew I needed to see you alone, and I needed to see what I just saw out there. I’m not standing by anymore. This is enough. I’m going to tell. I’ll go to your father and—”
“No, Gillian, don’t do that!”
“What mother and father wouldn’t defend and protect their daughter?”
“Mine!” I shouted. A woman who had been in a stall exited quickly and scooted out of the room. “Mine wouldn’t! I already went to them, and they won’t help me get out – they want me to stay in and ‘make it work’. You have to promise me you won’t go to my father!”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. My father would never—”
“Well, your father isn’t my father, is he?”
She came closer and asked softly, “Katie, what do you want out of life?”
“Oh, God, please stop asking me questions, please. I don’t know!”
“Yes, you do,” she said. “You want love. Or do you think you’re going to spend the rest of your life never loving or being loved again?”
“I have Rose,” I said, and saying her name made me cry. “She’s enough.”
“She’s wonderful! And right now you think she is enough,” said Gillian, “but it won’t always be that way. Katie, what are you doing in this marriage anyway? What are you possibly getting out of it?”
“Why do you imagine I’m getting something out of this? What the hell do you know? You don’t know what it’s like having all your hopes and dreams destroyed.”
“Then tell me what it’s like! Do you think by protecting Claude you’re staying safe? Has that worked so far?”
“I’m not protecting him.”
“Then what is going on, Katie? Tell me! You can’t even order your own dinner or choose where you want to spend a vacation, and you’re so terrified that you couldn’t even tell him you were working for Victoria Langley! And what’s going to happen when you go home tonight? Is he going to beat you because you didn’t tell him?”
“No!”
“And then it’s my fault because I brought it up?”
“No!”
“Do you see how fucked up this is? What am I supposed to do, call nine-one-one?”
“Oh, God, no! Gillian, stop. You have to understand. You wouldn’t be protecting me at all. It would just make everything worse. God. You don’t even know.” Suddenly I wanted her to know everything, even though I could not explain it in a thousand years. “He paid the chief of police on Nantucket to follow me around. I’m sure he’s done the same here. My phone is tapped. Everyone loves Claude – the pillar of society, the talented surgeon! He’d say I was crazy, and no one would believe me, and then I’d pay. He’d take Rose away from me, and then I couldn’t live. I’ll deny it, Gillian. You never saw him touch me!” I ranted and shook as she took me in her arms.
“Shhh, I believe you, let’s calm down, okay? Okay,” she said soothingly, “we’ll have to figure something else out. Please just let me spend the night with you. Cooper won’t mind, and I’d feel so much better.”
“I wish you could, but Claude won’t like it – this is just a bad night – they’re all bad nights! I don’t want to make it worse. Don’t worry, Gillian. Nothing is going to happen.”
“Now you have to promise me that you’ll see the therapist I told you about. Tell her what’s going on – she’ll help you and you’ll build a record of Claude’s behavior. Also, I have a lawyer I want you to see.”
“I promise I will, Gillian, and don’t worry, I’m almost there – I really am.”
Together, before the mirror, the two of us applied fresh lipstick and brushed our hair, looking for all the world like two ordinary women out to dinner, taking a break in the ladies�
� room to freshen up before returning to our table and the men who waited there for us.
11
Claude was stumbling drunk when we left the restaurant. No one had eaten much, the rest of our conversation was minimal and strained, and the dinner was a ruin the three of us were happy to abandon. Cooper helped Claude into the passenger seat, and I pulled away from the curb fast. When we got home, I paid the babysitter – the girl was all eyes as Claude staggered into the bathroom – and saw her out, then checked on Rose. She was sleeping soundly with Gigi tucked up snugly under her arm.
I went back downstairs to turn off the lights. Claude was waiting for me in the hallway.
No – not tonight.
“Sleep in the den, would you?” I said.
“Don’ tell me what t’ do,” he slurred, reaching out for me as I went by.
I grabbed his hand before it closed on my arm, raised it to my mouth, and bit it. Claude yelped with pain and surprise and yanked his arm back. His eyes were bleary but wide open with disbelief as he stared at his hand and then at me.
“You bit me,” he said. He cradled his bitten hand. “You bit me!”
I braced myself. He was drunk, he was slow; I would duck under his arms, I would run up to Rose’s room and—
He began to cry.
Covering his face with his hands he blundered along the hall and into the den and collapsed face down on the couch. Huge, racking sobs shook his body. I followed, hardly breathing, too shocked to work out what I should do. I knelt beside him.
“Claude… Claude?” I said. Gently I put my hands on his shoulders. He startled, then relaxed, and a new wave of sobs emerged from his throat, but less urgently. Gradually he quieted down and his sobs became a series of soft moans.
“Claude,” I whispered again. “Claude, sweetheart?”
He was asleep.
*
The next morning I came downstairs to the sound of Rose’s voice coming from the den. I looked inside. Rose was standing by the couch in her pajamas, saying, “Daddy, you are silly! Why are you in here? Will you watch TV with me, Daddy? Please?”
I went into the kitchen and put coffee on, then got out eggs, Canadian bacon and bread and butter. When the coffee was done, I poured a cup and took it in to Claude. He was sitting with Rose in his lap, and he looked terrible – hungover slump, half-open eyes and a slack jaw. I put the cup on the end table at his elbow. “There, that should help,” I said.
He looked up and seemed to take a second to focus, then he looked back at the TV screen. “Thank you, darling,” he said.
“I’ll fix you something for breakfast, that is, if you want something.”
“Not just nows.” He reached for his coffee and I saw the curving serrated pink line my teeth had made on the heel of his hand. Claude lifted the cup and slowly, carefully, brought it trembling to his lips.
I was fixing breakfast for Rose and me when the phone rang. The caller ID told me it was Gillian. I didn’t want to talk to Gillian, so I dialed the volume down and let the answering machine take the call.
“Katie, it’s me. If you’re there, pick up… Are you? It’s important, and I’m here, so don’t forget. Give me a call… Okay, I guess you really aren’t there. But call me back. Really, Katie, call me.”
I steered clear of Claude, which wasn’t difficult. He spent most of the morning spending time with Rose or out on errands with her or on his own. In the afternoon, when he was out, I called Gillian back and left a short message on her machine – and I felt a little ashamed, because I gambled that she would also be out in the middle of the day, and she was: “I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I hung up the phone, then picked it up again and made arrangements for a sitter for Rose. Claude and I were expected at Mitzi and William’s black-tie pre-Thanksgiving dinner party.
Claude seemed to have recovered from the previous night’s drinking by five o’clock. He was quiet, moving in and out of his study and around the house like a ghost. As I was dressing, he came into the bedroom with a bourbon and water and sat watching me. But I didn’t feel scrutinized; it was like the old days, when I hadn’t minded him watching me dress and in fact liked it.
“Hair of the dog,” he said.
In spite of myself, I startled.
“I’m sorry? What?”
“That’s what they say in America after drinking too much: take a hair of the dog that bit you.”
I glanced at his face but I didn’t see any irony there – or any anger.
“I should have had one this morning,” he said. “But having a morning drink in front of Rose…” He shrugged. “Not the thing.” He took a sip of his drink, then went to his closet and began to gather his evening clothes.
“In France they say something like soigner le mal par le mal – treat the evil with evil,” he said. He hung his jacket on the back of the closet door. “Or fight fire with fire.”
“I’m glad you feel better, Claude,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I guess I do. And I have something for you.”
“Oh! – what?”
“It’s my early giving-thanks present. Open it.” He handed me a ribbon-wrapped box.
“Oh, Claude, could we do this later? I still have to—”
“Open it,” he said in a voice so shy I was startled again.
Inside the box was a black negligee.
“It’s the best French silk and handmade lace you can buy. I can’t wait to see you in it.”
I ran my fingers over the slippery-smooth fabric. I had a drawer filled with camisoles and corsets and Claude’s favorite: a Coeur de Papillon baby-doll chemise set that he’d bought for me when we were first married. But I’d worn none of them since my pregnancy. At first, when I’d come upon them while searching for something, I’d feel a catch in my throat, remembering what we’d once had together, and how passionate I’d felt and how sexy in these things. And now I didn’t know what to feel or what to say, so I said, “Thank you, Claude. But now I must get ready to go,” and I turned – but he took my arm and brought me back around to face him, then put his arms around me and drew me to him. I was so shocked I could hardly react.
“Katie,” he murmured, kissing me. “My sweet Katie.”
*
We didn’t get home till after eleven. The party was on the small side, but its energy threatened to crack the walls. Everyone was geared up for Thanksgiving and the holiday fun that would follow. The holidays meant shopping, a respite, and the new year, and the new year meant winter: skiing, island vacations, and more fun – fun without end. The wine flowed, and Claude was in a good mood, surrounded by Garden Club women and Mitzi, who seemed to have a hard time keeping her hands off him. I watched him, wondering what the events of the previous night, and his tenderness this evening, had meant.
I followed him upstairs and into the bedroom. His mood was still mild, even playful. He went to his bureau and removed his gold cuff links and let them fall with two distinct clacks on the glass bureau top, and then his money clip, and I automatically thought about how I would get some of that money for myself.
He pulled his shirt off and let it drop to the floor. Picking up the new negligee, he tossed it to me where I sat on the bed.
“I’m so tired, Claude. Would you mind if I tried it on tomorrow?”
“Just tired? I would expect you’d be exhausted after all the dancing you did tonight with that Tony fellow. I saw him all over you,” Claude said. “And the way he looked at you.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” I said. “Tony was just being polite. You asked me to dance with him because you want to do his wife’s face, remember? I only do what you tell me to. I’m surprised you noticed – you were so engrossed in conversation with her. And now I am going to bed.”
I was tired – I just wanted the evening to be over so I could get off the merry-go-round that was whirling through my mind with its crazy calliope blaring.
“I’m sick and tired of you being too tired. Get undresse
d and put it on.”
Before I could decide what to do, he grabbed me by both arms and pulled me up off the bed and backed me into a corner of the bedroom. He took the front of my strapless red taffeta dress in his right hand and ripped it off me in a long, agonizing separation of fabric and thread. I stood naked, displaying only my pearl necklace and my scar.
“Claude, stop,” I said, but I knew it was pointless.
“Why are you resisting, Katie? You are still so beautiful,” he whispered as he slowly circled my nipples with the index finger of his right hand. His left kept me pinned to the wall.
I didn’t dare move; I hardly breathed, but my nipples grew hard. Claude’s voice grew raspy and he said, “Put it on.”
I slid the negligee over my arms and head and it furled down over me caressingly.
“That’s my little girl. Now, walk over to the bed slowly and lie down.” I did as he ordered, and he unzipped his pants. His gold belt buckle hit the floor. “That’s it,” he said. “Just pretend you’re waiting for that pig Tony.”
That burned me. At the party, Tony had told me I was beautiful in my red taffeta, and he danced me around the floor beautifully and didn’t want anything from me except the pleasure of my company. His hand had rested on the small of my back as we moved, and we talked and laughed, and he was a good-looking, gentle man enjoying me and enjoying himself.
“You’re the pig, Claude.”
“Oh, full of fight?” He got onto the bed and grabbed my wrists and put them up over my head. “I know what you want, I know what all of you want. But you can forget about running away with your Tony or your Nate or anyone else. You belong to me, Katie.”
With one hand he pulled the negligee up and over my head. He pulled my legs apart and swiftly thrust himself deep inside me, splitting me in two. “And you can tell that pushy cunt Gillian that the brainwashing is over.” He thrust again, deeper, a searing hot pain skewering me on a spit.
“Tell me how much you want it,” Claude said. “Tell me it’s the best you ever had.” His eyes bored into mine with a dark impersonal stare, and I tried to will myself into numbness, the thing I’d had at the hospital before they began cutting me open and the thing I had willed into being when I was little and used to focus on the dancing seals on the bedroom wallpaper, just me and the night light and the seals and the angry whisper of the blackthorn from my parents’ room and how the seals danced with happy smiles on their faces and the raised voices and cries and the quiet the next morning at the breakfast table where nothing was ever revealed and no voices were ever raised because what had happened, really? Nothing that need interfere with a life in which all was well, all was well and would never change…
Something To Be Brave For Page 16