A Widow for One Year

by John Irving

  Ruth was reluctant to introduce her boyfriends to Hannah because Hannah always said: “What a racket! Boy, did something wet just hit the ground, or am I imagining things?” (Wetness was a carryover in Hannah’s sexual vocabulary; it went all the way back to their Exeter days.) And Ruth was generally not proud of her boyfriends; she rarely wanted anyone to meet them. Nor were Ruth’s boyfriends usually in her life long enough for Hannah to have to meet them.

  Yet now, as Ruth sat on a stool, enduring the stares of the stagehand who was enamored of her breasts— and enduring Eddie’s laborious introduction to her life’s work (poor Eddie was now bogged down in her second novel)—she thought again of her exasperation with Hannah for being late to her reading, or for not showing up at all.

  Not only had they talked with such excitement about the prospect of meeting Eddie O’Hare, but in the case of Ruth’s present boyfriend, Ruth had very much wanted Hannah to meet him. Ruth felt, for once, that she actually needed to hear Hannah’s opinion. There’d been so many times when Ruth wished that Hannah had withheld her opinion. Now, when I need her, where is she? Ruth wondered. Doubtless fucking her brains out, as Hannah would say—or so Ruth imagined.

  She sighed deeply; she was aware of the rise and fall of her breasts, and of the idiot stagehand’s rapt attention to this detail. She could have heard the lecherous young man sigh in response, if Eddie hadn’t been droning on and on. Out of boredom, Ruth met the young stagehand’s stare and held it until he looked away. He had one of those wispy half-beards, a goatee-in-progress and a mustache as insubstantial as soot. If I neglected my regular wax job, Ruth thought, I could grow a better mustache than that.

  She sighed again, daring the letch to take another look at her breasts, but the scruffy young man had suddenly grown self-conscious about staring at her. Therefore, Ruth made a concentrated effort to stare at him. She soon lost interest. His jeans were ripped open at one knee— probably the pair he preferred for public appearances. What was likely a food spill had left an oily stain on the chest of his dark-brown turtleneck, which was stretched out of shape; bulges the size of tennis balls hung at the elbows.

  But as soon as Ruth turned her attention to her pending reading— indeed, the second she opened her new novel to the passage she’d chosen to read—the stagehand’s feral gaze once more fell upon her heralded breasts. Ruth thought that he had confused eyes; they were alert but puzzled, a little like a dog’s—given to a slavish loyalty, bordering on fawning.

  Then Ruth changed her mind about the passage she’d selected to read; she would read the first chapter instead. She hunched forward on the stagehand’s stool and held her open book in front of her, as she might have held a hymnal from which she was about to sing; thus she obscured her breasts from the stagehand’s view.

  It was a relief to Ruth that Eddie was finally addressing the subject of her third and most recent novel—“a variation on Ms. Cole’s familiar theme of female friendships gone awry,” Eddie was saying.

  More unmitigated sophistries! Ruth thought to herself. But there was a grain of truth to Eddie’s thesis; Ruth had already heard a similar analysis from Hannah. “So . . . this time,” Hannah had told her, “the Ruth character and the Hannah character start out as enemies. In the end, we become friends. I agree it’s different, but not very different.”

  In Ruth’s new novel, the Ruth character was a recent widow—a novelist named Jane Dash. It was the first time that Ruth had written about a writer; she was letting herself in for more autobiographical interpretations, of the very kind she loathed.

  The Hannah character, who begins the novel as Mrs. Dash’s enemy and ends the book as the widow’s best friend, is named Eleanor Holt. The women, who have long antagonized each other, are brought together much against their wills by their grown children; their son and daughter, respectively, fall in love and marry each other.

  Jane Dash, the mother of the groom, and Eleanor Holt, the mother of the bride, must share the responsibility of raising their grandchildren when the children’s parents are killed in a plane crash. (The trip was to be a second honeymoon for the young couple, who were celebrating their tenth anniversary.) At the time of the plane crash, Mrs. Dash is already a widow—she never remarries—and Eleanor Holt is divorced for the second time.

  It was Ruth Cole’s first novel to have an optimistic (if not altogether happy) ending, although Jane Dash remains uneasy about her friendship with Eleanor Holt—on the basis of “the sea changes in Eleanor’s character, which had so distinguished Eleanor’s past.” Hannah, fully recognizing Eleanor as “the Hannah character,” had taken offense at this line.

  “What ‘sea changes’ have you observed in my character?” Hannah demanded to know. “You may not always approve of my behavior, but exactly what about my character is inconsistent or contradictory?”

  “There’s nothing about you that’s ‘contradictory,’ Hannah,” Ruth had told her friend. “And you’re much more consistent than I am. I haven’t noticed a single change in your character—not even a little change, or a welcome change, much less a ‘sea change.’ ”

  Hannah found this a confounding answer, and she said so, but Ruth merely suggested that this was evidence—if Hannah needed any— that Eleanor Holt was not the Hannah character that Hannah thought she was. It was there that an uneasy standoff between Ruth and Hannah had ended—at least until Ruth had invited Hannah to come hear her read from the novel, and that invitation had had less to do with the novel, which Hannah had already read, than with the exciting prospect of meeting Eddie O’Hare.

  The other person whom Hannah had expressed an almost equal excitement about meeting was the man Ruth had described to her as her “present” boyfriend. In truth, he was more in the category of a would-be boyfriend—“a boyfriend candidate,” as Hannah would say. This boyfriend-in-waiting also happened to be Ruth’s new editor—that same Very Important Person at Random House whom Eddie O’Hare had taken a dislike to on the basis of his avuncular heartiness, and of his never remembering that he’d met Eddie before.

  Yes, Ruth had already told Hannah, he was the best editor she’d ever worked with. Yes, she had never—not to this degree—met a man she could talk to and listen to. Ruth felt there was no one, with the possible exception of Hannah, who knew her so well. Not only was he forthright and strong, but he challenged her “in all the good ways.”

  “What are the ‘good ways’?” Hannah had asked.

  “Oh, you’ll meet him—you’ll see,” Ruth had told her. “He’s also a gentleman.”

  “He’s old enough to be,” Hannah had replied. “I mean, he’s the right generation for gentlemanly behavior. What is he, anyway—twelve, fifteen years older than you are?” (She’d seen a photograph.)

  “Eighteen,” Ruth had said quietly.

  “That’s a gentleman, all right,” Hannah had said. “And doesn’t he have children? My God, how old are they ? They could be as old as you are!”

  “He has no children,” Ruth replied.

  “But I thought he was married for years and years,” Hannah said. “Why doesn’t he have children?”

  “His wife didn’t want children—she was afraid of having children,” Ruth said.

  “Sounds like you, sort of,” Hannah said.

  “Allan wanted a child, his wife didn’t,” Ruth admitted.

  “So he still wants a child,” Hannah concluded.

  “It’s something we’re talking about,” Ruth confessed.

  “And I suppose he still talks to the ex-wife. Let’s hope that his will be the last generation of men who feel it’s necessary to keep talking to their ex-wives,” Hannah dismissively said. It was her journalist’s sensibility: everyone’s statistics are presumed to comply to age, to education, to type . It was an infuriating way to think, but Ruth bit her tongue. “So,” Hannah had added philosophically, “I suppose the sex is . . . all you expected?”

  “We haven’t had sex yet,” Ruth admitted.

  “Who’s waiting
?” Hannah asked.

  “We both are,” Ruth had lied. Allan was being patient; it was Ruth who was “waiting.” She was so afraid that she wouldn’t like sex with him that she had procrastinated. She didn’t want to have to stop thinking of him as the man in her life.

  “But you said he asked you to marry him!” Hannah had cried. “He wants to marry you and he hasn’t had sex with you yet? That’s not even generational behavior—that’s his father’s generation, or his grandfather’s !”

  “He wants me to know that I’m not just another girlfriend to him,” Ruth told Hannah.

  “You’re not yet a girlfriend at all!” Hannah said.

  “I think it’s sweet,” Ruth said. “He’s in love with me before he’s slept with me. I think it’s nice.”

  “It’s different, ” Hannah allowed. “So what are you afraid of ?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything,” Ruth lied.

  “You don’t usually want me to meet your boyfriends,” Hannah reminded her.

  “This one’s special,” Ruth said.

  “So special that you haven’t slept with him.”

  “He can beat me at squash,” Ruth added feebly.

  “So can your father, and how old is he?”

  “Seventy-seven,” Ruth said. “You know how old my father is.”

  “Jesus, is he really? He doesn’t look it,” Hannah said.

  “I am talking about Allan Albright, not my father,” Ruth said angrily. “Allan Albright is only fifty-four. He loves me, he wants to marry me, and I think I would be happy living with him.”

  “Did you say you loved him?” Hannah asked. “I didn’t hear you say that.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Ruth admitted. “I don’t know that. I don’t know how to tell,” she added.

  “If you can’t tell, you don’t love him,” Hannah said. “And I thought he had the reputation of . . . uh, he was quite a ladies’ man, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, he was, ” Ruth said slowly. “He told me that himself, and that he’s changed.”

  “Uh-oh,” Hannah said. “Do men change?”

  “Do we ?” Ruth asked.

  “You want to, don’t you?” Hannah said.

  “I’m tired of bad boyfriends,” Ruth confessed.

  “You sure can pick them,” Hannah told her. “But I thought you picked them because you knew they were bad. I thought you picked them because you knew they’d go away. Sometimes even before you told them to.”

  “You’ve picked some bad boyfriends, too,” Ruth said.

  “Sure, all the time,” Hannah admitted. “But I’ve also picked some good ones—they just don’t stay around.”

  “I think Allan will stay around,” Ruth said.

  “Sure he will,” Hannah told her. “So you’re worried if you’ll stay around—is that it?”

  “Yes,” Ruth finally confessed. “That’s it.”

  “I want to meet him,” Hannah said. “I’ll tell you if you’ll stay around. I’ll know the minute I meet him.”

  And now she’s stood me up! Ruth thought. She thumped her copy of the novel shut; she held the book against her breasts. She felt like bursting into tears, she was so angry with Hannah, but she saw how she had startled the horny stagehand by her sudden gesture; she enjoyed his look of alarm.

  “The audience can hear you backstage,” the sly boy whispered to her. He had a supercilious smile.

  Ruth’s response was not spontaneous; almost everything she said was deliberate. “In case you’ve been wondering,” Ruth whispered to the stagehand, “they’re thirty-four D.”

  “What?” the boy whispered.

  He’s too dumb to get it, Ruth decided. Besides, the audience had broken into a resounding applause. Without hearing what Eddie had said, Ruth understood that Eddie had finally finished.

  She paused onstage, to shake his hand, before approaching the podium. Eddie, confused, walked backstage instead of to his reserved seat in the audience; once backstage, he was too embarrassed to go to his seat. He looked helplessly at the unfriendly stagehand, who was not about to offer Eddie his stool.

  Ruth waited out the applause. She picked up her empty water glass and immediately put it down. Oh, God, I drank her water! Eddie realized.

  “What a set of hooters, huh?” the stagehand whispered to Eddie, who said nothing but looked guilty. (He hadn’t heard what the stagehand said; Eddie assumed it was something about the glass of water.)

  For his small part in the evening’s proceedings, the stagehand suddenly felt smaller than usual; no sooner had the word “hooters” died on his lips than the shallow young man grasped what the famous novelist had whispered to him. She’s a 34D! the slow-witted fool realized. But why had she told him? Was she coming on to me or what ? the moron wondered.

  When the applause had at last died down, Ruth said: “Would you turn up the houselights a little, please? I want to be able to see my editor’s face. If I see him cringe, I’ll know there’s something I missed—or something he missed.”

  It got a laugh, as it was intended to do, but that wasn’t entirely why she had said it. She didn’t need to see Allan Albright’s face; he was enough on her mind already. What Ruth wanted to see was the empty seat beside Allan, the seat that had been reserved for Hannah Grant. Actually, there were two empty seats beside Allan, because Eddie had become trapped backstage, but Ruth noticed only Hannah’s absence.

  Goddamn you, Hannah! Ruth thought, but she was onstage now. All she needed to do was cast her eyes on the page; her writing completely absorbed her. Outwardly, she was what Ruth Cole always was: composed. And as soon as she began to read, she would feel inwardly composed, too.

  She might not know what to do about boyfriends—especially one who wanted to marry her—and she might not know how to deal with her father, about whom her feelings were sorely mixed. She might not know whether to hate her best friend, Hannah, or to forgive her. But when it came to her writing, Ruth Cole was the picture of confidence and concentration.

  In fact, she was concentrating so completely on reading the first chapter, which was called “The Red and Blue Air Mattress,” that she forgot to tell the audience the title of her new novel. No matter; most of them already knew the title. (More than half the people in the audience had read the whole book.)

  The first chapter’s origins were peculiar. The magazine section of a German newspaper, the S¸ddeutsche Zeitung, had asked Ruth to submit a short story for the annual fiction issue. Ruth rarely wrote short stories; there was always a novel on her mind, even if she hadn’t begun to write it. But the rules regarding the submission to the S¸ddeutsche Zeitung intrigued her: every short story published in the magazine was called “The Red and Blue Air Mattress”; and, at least once in every story, an actual red and blue air mattress had to make an appearance. (It was further suggested that the air mattress had to be of sufficient significance to the story to merit its existence as a title.)

  Ruth liked rules. For most writers, rules were laughable, but Ruth was also a squash player; she had a fondness for games. The fun for Ruth was where and how to bring the air mattress into the story. She already knew who her characters were: they would be Jane Dash, newly a widow, and Mrs. Dash’s then-enemy Eleanor Holt.

  “And so,” Ruth told the audience at the 92nd Street Y, “I owe my first chapter to an air mattress.” The audience laughed. It was now a game for the audience, too.

  It was Eddie O’Hare’s impression that even the boorish stagehand was full of anticipation for the red and blue air mattress. It was further testimony to how international a writer Ruth Cole had become: the first chapter of her new novel had been published in German under the title “Die blaurote Luftmatratze,” before any of Ruth’s many readers could read it in English!

  Ruth told the audience: “I want to dedicate this reading to my best friend, Hannah Grant.” One day Hannah would hear of the dedication she had missed; someone in the audience would be sure to mention it to her.

  You could have
heard a pin drop, as they say, when Ruth began to read her first chapter.

  The Red and Blue Air Mattress

  She’d been a widow for one year, yet Jane Dash was as prone to being swept away by a so-called flood of memories as she was on that morning when she’d awakened with her husband dead beside her. She was a novelist. She had no intentions of writing a memoir; autobiography didn’t interest her, her own, especially. But she did want to keep her memories of the past under control, as any widow must.

  A most unwelcome intrusion from Mrs. Dash’s past was the former hippie Eleanor Holt. Eleanor was drawn to the misfortunes of others; truly, she seemed uplifted by them. Widows in particular appealed to her. Eleanor was living evidence of Mrs. Dash’s conviction that poetic justice is not forthcoming on a regular basis. Not even Plutarch could convince Jane Dash that Eleanor Holt would ever receive her just rewards.

  What was it called—what Plutarch had written? Jane thought it was “Why the Gods Are So Slow to Punish the Wicked,” but she couldn’t exactly remember. Anyway, despite the centuries that separated them, Plutarch must have had Eleanor Holt in mind.

  Mrs. Dash’s late husband had once referred to Eleanor as a woman under the constant pressure of revising herself. ( Jane thought this assessment was overly kind.) When she was first married, Eleanor Holt was one of those women who flaunted the happiness of her marriage to such a degree that anyone who’d ever been divorced cordially loathed her. When she was newly divorced, Eleanor became such an advocate of divorce that anyone who was happily married wanted to kill her.

  In the sixties, to no one’s surprise, she was a socialist, in the seventies a feminist. When she lived in New York, she thought that life in the Hamptons, which she called “the country,” was suitable only for fair-weather weekends; to live in the Hamptons year-round, or in bad weather, was strictly for bumpkins and other dullards.