A Widow for One Year

by John Irving

  “Not asleep, I hope,” Allan said. “And you’re alone, I trust.”

  “Not asleep, definitely alone,” Ruth answered him. Why did he have to spoil what a favorable impression he’d made by sounding the jealousy note?

  “How’d it go?” Allan asked her.

  She felt suddenly too tired to tell him the details, which, only moments before he called, had so excited her.

  “It was a very special evening,” Ruth said. “It’s given me so much more of a picture of my mother—actually, both of her and of myself,” she added. “Maybe I shouldn’t be afraid that I’d be a rotten wife. Maybe I wouldn’t make a bad mother.”

  “ I’ve told you that,” Allan reminded her. Why couldn’t he just be grateful that she was possibly coming around to the idea of what he wanted?

  That was when Ruth knew that she would not have sex with Allan the next night, either. What sense did it make to sleep with someone and then go off to Europe for two, almost three weeks? (As much sense as it made to keep putting off sleeping with him, Ruth reconsidered. She wouldn’t agree to marry Allan without sleeping with him first—at least once.)

  “Allan, I’m awfully tired—and there’s too much that’s too new on my mind,” Ruth began.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “I don’t want to have dinner with you tomorrow night—I don’t want to see you until I’m back from Europe,” she told him. She half-hoped that he would try to dissuade her, but he was silent. Even his patience with her was irritating.

  “I’m still listening,” he said, because she had paused.

  “I want to sleep with you—I must sleep with you,” Ruth assured him. “But not just before I go away. And not just before I see my father,” Ruth added, which she knew was apropos of nothing. “I want the time away to think about us.” That was finally how she put it.

  “I understand,” Allan said. It broke her heart to know he was a good man, but not to know if he was the right one. And how would “time away” help her to determine that ? What she needed, in order to know, was more time with Allan.

  But what she said was: “I knew you’d understand.”

  “I love you very much,” Allan told her.

  “I know you do,” Ruth said.

  Later, as she struggled to fall asleep, she tried not to think of her father. Although Ted Cole had told his daughter about her mother’s affair with Eddie O’Hare, Ted had neglected to tell Ruth that their affair had been his idea. When Eddie had told her that her father had purposely brought him and Marion together, Ruth had been shocked. That her father had connived to make her mother feel that she was unfit to be a mother was not what shocked Ruth; she already knew that her father was a conniver. What shocked Ruth was that her father had wanted her all to himself, that he’d wanted to be her father so badly!

  At thirty-six, both loving and hating her father as she now did, it tormented Ruth to know how much her father loved her.

  Hannah at Thirty-Five

  Ruth couldn’t sleep. The cause of her insomnia was the cognac—in combination with what she had confessed to Eddie O’Hare, which was something she’d not told even Hannah Grant. At every important passage in her life, Ruth had anticipated that she would hear from her mother. Upon her graduation from Exeter, for example, but it didn’t happen. And there came and went her graduation from Middlebury, without a word.

  Nevertheless, Ruth had gone on expecting to hear from Marion— especially in 1980, upon the publication of her first novel. And there were then the publications of two more novels, the second in ’85 and the third right now—in the fall of 1990. That was why, when the presumptuous Mrs. Benton had attempted to pass herself off as Ruth’s mother, Ruth had been so angry. For years she’d imagined that Marion might suddenly announce herself in exactly that way.

  “Do you think she ever will make an appearance?” Ruth had asked Eddie in the taxi.

  Eddie had disappointed her. In the course of her thrilling evening with him, Eddie had done much to contradict Ruth’s first, unfair impression of him, but in the taxi he’d fumbled badly.

  “Uh . . .” he began, “I imagine that your mother must make peace with herself before she can . . . uh, well, re-enter your life.” Eddie paused—as if he hoped that the taxi had already arrived at the Stanhope. “Uh . . .” he said again, “Marion has her demons—her ghosts, I suppose—and she must somehow try to deal with them before she can make herself available to you.”

  “She’s my mother, for Christ’s sake!” Ruth had cried in the cab. “ I’m the demon she should be trying to deal with!”

  But all that Eddie had managed to say was: “I almost forgot! There was a book—actually, two books—that I wanted to give you.”

  Here she’d asked him the most important question in her life: Was it reasonable for her to hope that her mother would ever contact her? And Eddie had pawed around in his wet briefcase, producing two water-damaged books.

  One of them was the inscribed copy of his litany of sexual bliss to Marion, Sixty Times . And the other? He’d been at a loss to say what the other book was. He’d simply thrust it into her lap in the taxi.

  “You said you were going to Europe,” Eddie told her. “This is good airplane reading.”

  At such a time, and in answer to Ruth’s all-important question, he’d offered her “airplane reading.” Then the taxi had stopped at the Stanhope. Eddie had given Ruth the clumsiest of handshakes. She’d kissed him, of course, and he’d blushed—like a sixteen-year-old boy!

  “We must get together when you’re back from Europe!” Eddie had called from the departing cab.

  Maybe he was bad at good-byes. In all honesty, “pathetic” and “ unfortunate” did not do him justice. He’d made an art form of his modesty. “He wore his self-deprecation like a badge of honor,” Ruth wrote in her diary. “And there was nothing of the weasel about him.” (Ruth had heard her father call Eddie a weasel on more than one occasion.)

  Also, when it was still early in their evening together, Ruth had understood something about Eddie: he never complained. In addition to his prettiness, his frail-looking beauty, what her mother might have seen in him was something that extended beyond his loyalty to her. Despite his appearance to the contrary, Eddie O’Hare was remarkably brave; he had accepted Marion as she was. And in the summer of ’58, Ruth imagined, her mother had not necessarily been at her psychological best.

  Half naked, Ruth went looking through her suite at the Stanhope for the alleged “airplane reading” that Eddie had given her. She was too drunk to waste a word of The Life of Graham Greene, and she had already read Sixty Times; in truth, she’d read it twice.

  To her dismay, the “airplane reading” appeared to be some kind of crime fiction. Ruth was immediately put off by the title, Followed Home from the Flying Food Circus . Both the author and the publisher were unknown to her. Upon closer inspection, Ruth saw that the publisher was Canadian.

  Even the author photo was a mystery, for the woman—the unknown writer was a woman—was in profile to the camera, and what little could be seen of her face was backlit. The woman also wore a hat, which shaded the only eye that was exposed to the camera. All that could be seen of her face was a fine nose, a strong chin, a sharp cheekbone. Her hair—what of it that fell free of the hat—might have been blond or gray, or almost white. Her age was indeterminable.

  It was an exasperating photograph, and Ruth was not surprised to read that the unknown author’s name was a nom de plume; a woman who hid her face would choose a pen name. So this was what Eddie called “airplane reading.” Even before she began the book, Ruth was unimpressed. And the beginning of the novel was not much better than Ruth’s initial judgment of the book (by its cover).

  Ruth read: “A salesgirl who was also a waitress had been found dead in her apartment on Jarvis, south of Gerrard. It was an apartment within her means, but only because she had shared it with two other salesgirls. The three of them sold bras at Eaton’s.”

  A
detective novel! Ruth snapped the book shut. Where was there a Jarvis Street, or a Gerrard? What was Eaton’s? What did Ruth Cole care about girls who sold bras?

  She’d finally fallen asleep—it was after two—when the telephone woke her.

  “Are you alone? Can you talk?” Hannah asked her in a whisper.

  “Definitely alone,” Ruth said. “But why would I want to talk to you? You traitor.”

  “I knew you’d be angry,” Hannah said. “I almost didn’t call.”

  “Is that an apology?” Ruth asked her best friend. She had never heard Hannah apologize.

  “Something came up,” Hannah whispered.

  “Something or some one?” Ruth asked.

  “Same difference,” Hannah replied. “I was suddenly called out of town.”

  “Why are you whispering?” Ruth asked her.

  “I’d rather not wake him up,” Hannah said.

  “You mean you’re with someone now ?” Ruth asked. “Is he there ?”

  “Not exactly,” Hannah whispered. “I had to move to another bedroom because he snores. I never imagined that he would snore .”

  Ruth refrained from comment. Hannah never failed to mention some intimacy involving her sexual partners.

  “I was disappointed that you weren’t with me,” Ruth finally said. But, even as she spoke, it occurred to Ruth that if Hannah had been there, Hannah would never have let Ruth be alone with Eddie. Hannah would have been too curious about Eddie—she would have wanted Eddie all to herself ! “On second thought,” Ruth told her friend, “I’m glad you weren’t with me. I got to be alone with Eddie O’Hare.”

  “So you still haven’t done it with Allan,” Hannah whispered.

  “The main thing about this evening was Eddie, ” Ruth replied. “I never saw my mother as clearly as I can see her now.”

  “But when are you gonna do it with Allan?” Hannah asked.

  “When I get back from Europe, probably,” Ruth said. “Don’t you want to hear about my mother?”

  “When you get back from Europe !” Hannah whispered. “That’s what? In two or three weeks ? God, he might meet someone else before you get back! And what about you? Even you might meet someone else!”

  “If either Allan or I meet someone else,” Ruth replied, “then it will be an especially good thing that we haven’t slept together.” It wasn’t until she put it that way that Ruth feared she cared more about losing Allan as an editor than about losing him as a husband .

  “So tell me everything about Eddie O’Hare,” Hannah whispered.

  “He’s very sweet,” Ruth began. “He’s quite odd, but mainly sweet.”

  “But is he sexy ?” Hannah asked. “I mean, could you imagine him with your mother? Your mother was so beautiful . . .”

  “Eddie O’Hare is a little beautiful,” Ruth replied.

  “Do you mean he’s effeminate?” Hannah asked. “My God—he’s not gay, is he?”

  “No, no—he’s not gay. He’s not effeminate, either,” Ruth told Hannah. “He’s just very gentle. Surprisingly delicate-looking.”

  “I thought he was tall,” Hannah said.

  “Tall and delicate,” Ruth replied.

  “I can’t see it—he sounds odd,” Hannah said.

  “I said he was odd,” Ruth told her. “Odd and sweet, and delicate. And he’s devoted to my mother. I mean, he would marry her tomorrow !”

  “He would ?” Hannah whispered. “But how old would your mother be? Seventy -something?”

  “Seventy-one,” Ruth said. “And Eddie is only forty-eight.”

  “That is odd,” Hannah whispered.

  “Don’t you want to hear about my mother ?” Ruth repeated.

  “Just a minute,” Hannah told her. She went away from the phone; then she was back. “I thought he said something, but it was just more snoring.”

  “I can tell you another time, if you’re not interested,” Ruth said coldly. (It was almost her reading-aloud voice.)

  “Of course I’m interested !” Hannah whispered. “I suppose you and Eddie talked about your dead brothers.”

  “We talked about the photographs of my dead brothers,” Ruth told her.

  “I should hope so!” Hannah answered.

  “It was strange because there were some that he remembered that I didn’t. And there were others that I remembered, but he didn’t. We agreed that we must have invented these particular photographs. Then there were others that we both remembered, and we thought that these must be the real ones. I think we each had more invented photographs than we had real ones.”

  “You and what’s ‘real’ and what’s ‘invented,’ ” Hannah remarked. “Your favorite subject . . .”

  Ruth resented Hannah’s obvious lack of interest, but she went on.

  “The photo of Thomas playing doctor to Timothy’s knee—that one is definitely real,” Ruth said. “And the one where Thomas is taller than my mother, and he’s holding a hockey puck in his teeth—we both remember that one, too.”

  “I remember the one of your mother in bed, with your brothers’ feet,” Hannah said.

  It was hardly surprising that Hannah would remember that one. Ruth had taken it to Exeter with her, and to Middlebury, too; presently, it was in the bedroom of her house in Vermont. (Eddie had not told Ruth that he’d masturbated to this particular picture of Marion, after he’d hidden the feet. When Ruth had raised the memory of those feet being covered with “what looked like little pieces of paper,” Eddie had told her that he didn’t remember anything covering the feet. “Then I must have invented that, too,” Ruth had said.)

  “And I remember the one of your brothers at Exeter, under the good old ‘Come hither boys and be men’ bullshit,” Hannah said. “God, they were good-looking guys.”

  Ruth had shown Hannah that photo of her brothers the first time Hannah had come home with her to Sagaponack. They’d been students at Middlebury at the time. The photo was always in her father’s bedroom, and Ruth had brought Hannah into his bedroom when her father was playing squash in his devious barn. Hannah had said the same thing then—that they were good-looking guys. That would be what Hannah would remember, Ruth thought.

  “Eddie and I remembered the featured photograph in the kitchen— the one of both boys eating lobster,” Ruth went on. “Thomas is dismantling his lobster with the ease and dispassion of a scientist—there’s not the slightest strain on his face. Whereas it’s as if Timothy is fighting his lobster, and the lobster’s winning! I think that’s the picture I remember best. And all these years I wondered if I invented it or if it was real. Eddie said it was the one he remembered best, so it must be real.”

  “Didn’t you ever ask your father about the photographs?” Hannah asked. “Surely he would remember them better than you or Eddie.”

  “He was so angry at my mother for taking them with her that he refused to talk about them,” Ruth answered.

  “You’re too hard on him,” Hannah told her. “I think he’s charming.”

  “I’ve seen him be ‘charming’ a few too many times,” Ruth told Hannah. “Besides, all he ever is is charming—especially when he’s around you .” Uncharacteristically, Hannah let Ruth’s remark pass.

  It was Hannah’s theory that many women who had known Marion (even if only by a photograph) must have been flattered by Ted Cole’s attentions to them—simply because of how beautiful Marion had been. Ruth’s response to Hannah’s theory was: “I’m sure that must have made my mother feel terrific .”

  Now Ruth felt frankly tired of trying to explain the importance of her evening with Eddie to Hannah. Hannah just wasn’t getting it.

  “But what did Eddie say about the sex ? Or did he say anything about it?” Hannah asked.

  It’s absolutely all she’s interested in! Ruth thought. Ruth despaired of talking about sex, because that subject would soon lead Hannah back to her questions regarding when Ruth was going to “do it” with Allan.

  “That photograph you remember so well,”
Ruth began. “My goodlooking brothers in the doorway of the Main Academy Building . . .”

  “What about it?” Hannah asked.

  “Eddie told me that my mother made love to him under that photograph,” Ruth reported. “It was the first time they did it. My mother left the photo for Eddie, but my father took it.”

  “And he hung it in his bedroom !” Hannah whispered harshly. “ That’s interesting!”

  “What a remarkable memory you have, Hannah,” Ruth said. “You even remember that the photograph of my brothers is in my father’s bedroom!” But Hannah made no response, and Ruth thought again: I’m tired of this conversation. (She was most of all tired of Hannah never saying she was sorry.)

  Ruth sometimes wondered if Hannah would still be her friend if Ruth hadn’t become famous. In her own way—in the smaller world of magazines—Hannah was famous, too. She’d first made a name for herself writing personal essays. She’d kept a comedic diary; for the most part, it was a journal of her sexual exploits. But she’d soon tired of autobiography. Hannah had “graduated” to death and devastation.

  In her morbid phase, Hannah had interviewed people who were dying; she’d devoted herself to terminal cases. Terminal children had captured her attention for about eighteen months. Later there’d been a piece on a burn ward, and one on a leper colony, too. She’d traveled to war zones, and to countries with widespread famine.

  Then Hannah had “graduated” once again; she’d left death and devastation for the world of the perverse and the bizarre. She once wrote about a male porn star who was reputed to have a perpetual hard-on—his name, in the business, was “Mr. Metal.” Hannah had also interviewed a Belgian woman in her seventies who’d performed in over three thousand live-sex shows; her only partner had been her husband, who’d died following a sex performance. The grieving widow had not had sex since. Not only had she been faithful to her husband for forty years; for the last twenty years of their marriage, they’d had sex only in front of an audience.

  Now Hannah had transformed herself yet again. Her current interest was famous people, which in the United States meant mainly movie stars and sports heroes and the occasional eccentric who was disturbingly rich. Hannah had never interviewed a writer, although she’d raised the subject of an “extensive”—or had Hannah said “ exhaustive”?—interview with Ruth.