by May Sarton
“Come on now!” Angelica says, quite crossly for her. “You don’t have to become a saint, do you, to stand firm?”
So at last I can laugh at myself and the whole stupid world. “I don’t know,” I say, pouring us another cup of tea. “I probably asked for this without even knowing what I was doing. A women’s bookstore is going to attract all sorts of women. That is what I wanted, after all.”
“But has there been an inundation of women couples?”
“No. A few. All charming so far. All people I want to know. It’s the young who have no doubts, you see. They introduce a friend as their lover. I must say it does amaze me. It even shocks me.”
“I don’t like it, Harriet. It just seems so naked.” And in Angelica’s tone I recognize myself, the self of two weeks ago who has already begun to change.
“I like honesty,” I say. “I like it that they include me. And that’s what I want of this place: an open door and no judgmental values.”
“You’ve come a long way, baby,” says Angelica, mimicking the cigarette ad and teasing a little as she does so. And there it ends for the time being, Angelica insisting that she will call me every evening and that I carry a cane when I give Patapouf a last walk.
After she leaves and it is nearly six, I close up. Patapouf will have to wait until I can pull myself together. So far I have been too busy to be more than superficially afraid. Now I have the odd sensation that I mustn’t move, and with Patapouf at my feet, I sit in the armchair by the cold fire for quite a while. I can hear footsteps on the pavement below, and once a motorcycle revving up and roaring away, people laughing, the grinding roar of the bus as it comes to a halt. These are familiar enough sounds, but I am ultrasensitized to another sound which, if it exists, is being drowned out. But, after all, who would try anything sinister at this time of night? I decide to walk Patapouf while there are still homecomers in the streets.
Whatever “they” will do or not do, they have invaded my life already and changed its atmosphere and that makes me furious. But out on the street with the old dog, and leaning on my cane while she smells every tree trunk, I am suddenly not afraid at all. Several people are neighbors, saying something friendly like, “How are you doing?” If there are enemies among the workingmen on their way, they do not show it. And suddenly the whole affair seems ridiculous. Two young women carrying book bags stop to ask me if I own the bookstore and beg me to stay open one night a week till eight or nine. They cannot know what a godsend they are.
“I’ll think about it,” I assure them, “when I can find an assistant to spell me and Joan. It is so good to feel the bookstore means something to you.”
“We want to come and see,” the tall one says, “but it’s hard in the daytime. You see, I clean houses in the afternoons. I have to have a job. It’s awfully expensive being a student these days.”
“We clean as a team,” the other girl says. “It’s fun in a way.”
“Look,” I say on impulse, and because I like their faces, “I’ll open up now for a half-hour for you.” I have it in mind that they might be the answer to Saturdays, but it is a little soon to act on that impulse. At any rate they jump at the chance to come in and look around and bury themselves at once in silent roving from bookcase to bookcase, taking out a book now and then to look into, then carefully putting it back. Finally the tall one asks, “Do you have a book about those Welsh ladies, the eighteenth-century ones, who lived together in some remote place, but everyone knew them?”
“The ladies of Llangollen.” I recognize them of course and go to the bookcase of biographies to pull out an English paperback. “This is what you are after.”
“Oh my,” the other one says, “how much is it?”
“I’ll mark it down to five dollars. It’s a little worn at the binding I see. Paperbacks do split rather often.”
They exchange a look. “We’ll buy it,” says the tall one, burrowing into her jeans pocket. “Hot dogs for dinner, Fanny,” she says to her companion, “but it’s worth it,” she adds with a smile.
As I make out the slip I am still uncertain about whether to ask them for Saturday help or not. Meanwhile I talk. “My friend Vicky and I went to Llangollen to see the farmhouse. We had a picnic in a field nearby, such lovely rugged country. But the house itself feels empty and strange. I felt that their ghosts had left, even from their big double bed with its dark carved bedposts.”
“Oh, tell us more,” says Fanny.
“Sit down for a minute. There is something I want to ask you. But first my name is Harriet Hatfield.”
“Mine is Fanny Arthur, and my friend is Ruth Phillipson.” I am relieved that Fanny does not say “and my lover is …”
“I’m happy to meet you. You appear to be one of those serendipitous happenings.” Fanny is clasping the book in her hands. “How would you like to mind the store on Saturdays?”
They beam at each other. “We’d love it, Miss Hatfield, but …” She looks over at Ruth with obvious distress.
“You could even study. It’s not been that busy so far.”
“Fanny does not know how to say it, but you see, cleaning we make ten dollars an hour, eighty dollars on Saturdays. That would be too much, wouldn’t it?” Fanny is blushing.
It is my turn to be distressed and to frown as I make quick calculations in my head. If we sold two hundred dollars’ worth on Saturdays, and that is not really that much, would that cover their eighty dollars? Joan will be appalled, I fear.
“Oh dear,” Fanny sighs.
“Well,” I say slowly, still weighing the deal, still asking myself to go slow and be careful, “after all, I’ve found the right people for the shop, I think. I’ll make a deal with you. Let’s try it for a month, shall we? If you sell enough books it will work out for the shop. How about it?”
“It’s wonderful, it’s marvelous.” Fanny leaps to her feet and does a little dance. “It’s unbelievable.”
“The only thing is we have to honor a promise about cleaning for someone this Saturday, so we can’t start until next Saturday,” says Ruth. I am entertained by the way she reacts as against Fanny’s ebullience. Ruth perhaps is one of those people who reacts to good news with solemnity.
“But just imagine”—Fanny is not to be beaten down—“what it will be like to run a bookstore instead of cleaning out bathrooms!”
Patapouf, who always reacts to movement and gaiety, emerges from under my desk in a flurry of barks. “It’s a deal,” I say. But then I must tell them about the jeopardy we may be in. “You must give me your address, by the way, while I think of it.”
“I live with my family,” says Ruth. “I’ll give you their address.” So they are not a couple after all. Will they understand, I wonder.
“There is something you must know,” I say, after writing their addresses down. “Sit down and let me explain.”
They listen in silence while I tell them about the letter, about O’Reilly, and end by saying that the last thing I had imagined when I opened the store would be such hatred. I admit that I am frightened by it.
“Well, it’s just disgusting,” Fanny bursts out.
“It’s the way things are,” Ruth says quietly. “You see,” she says slowly, feeling her way, “we are not lovers, just good friends. But so many people take it for granted that we must be lesbians, it upsets Fanny, and me too. So we get it the other way.”
“The obsession with coming out, with being honest, telling the world. People just don’t believe in a real friendship any more!” Fanny says. “It’s out of fashion.”
“So maybe you don’t feel you want to hold the fort on Saturdays?” I am disappointed.
“Of course we want to come,” Ruth says. “Fanny loves a fight!”
“You see,” I explain, “I lived for thirty years with a woman, the publisher Victoria Chilton. When she died last year she left me money and that is how I can afford to run a bookstore at a perpetual deficit—at least so far.”
“You mustn’t thin
k we are against such relationships,” Ruth answers.
“For heaven’s sake, of course not,” Fanny says. “I feel any relationship that lasts thirty years must be real and fulfilling. I sort of envy you that, even though you must have felt cut in two when she died.”
“I tell you what,” I say, “think my offer over, talk it over, understand what you may be risking if you decide to take the job, and whether you can really live in the atmosphere here. Maybe you could come a week from tomorrow and let my manager Joan fill you in, and then see how it strikes you. Have a trial run. How about that as a solution?”
“But there’s no problem,” Ruth says in her quiet way.
And at this the whole situation strikes me as hilarious and I laugh aloud. “What a kettle of fish!” I say, still laughing.
“We had better let you go,” Fanny says, “but we’ll come on Saturday a week from tomorrow. You can count on us.” We shake hands, and they leave.
When they have gone I turn out the lights and stand for a moment in the dark, looking out on the street—wondering who might be lurking there. Patapouf, sensing fear in the air, gives a loud, deep bark. “It’s time we went upstairs, old dog.”
I am suddenly so tired it is an effort to climb to the second floor. It has been an extraordinary day. One hard problem, one splendid solution. But when I call Joan to tell her about Fanny and Ruth she is upset.
“You can’t mean you hired these women off the street, without knowing anything about them?” she asks, dismay in her voice. I had expected relief.
“I like them, Joan. I have to trust my instincts.”
“Very well.” But I can tell she is not convinced. “You are such an innocent,” she says. “It scares the pants off me.”
“I suppose I am an innocent. I prefer that to being a cynic.” It is the closest we have come to a disagreement.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says coldly, “hope nothing happens tonight.” I sit down then and pour myself a double scotch. For once I do not turn on the news. The television can drown out slight sounds, and I must be alert. It is no way to live, but, strangely enough, when I get into bed after eating a poached egg on toast, I fall asleep at once.
The last thing I expect at nine the next morning, before Joan arrives at ten, is a ring at my door. And the very last thing I expect is to find Fred standing there with a parcel in his hands.
“Hey, what are you doing roving around here so early in the morning?” I ask, not very warmly.
“Well, let me in and I’ll explain.”
“Come up and have a cup of coffee.”
“Thanks, but what I need right now is a pail of water, a hard sponge, and some detergent.” My heart sinks. “I don’t suppose you’ve been out yet, have you?”
“I was just going to walk Patapouf when you rang.”
“Someone has chalked an obscenity on your windows. If it’s chalk, not paint, I can rub it off in a minute.”
“Oh.”
“Angelica called me,” he explains while I obey his orders, find a pail under the sink and fill it. “I happen to have a very strong lock on hand, came over to install it as a matter of fact.” He smiles his secretive smile, then, “You have to admit I am a useful brother to have.”
But I am cross, feel betrayed, and Fred is the last person I want around at this point. “Damn Angelica. She had no right to call you!”
“She was pretty upset,” he says, “and she’s a good friend. You need good friends.”
“If there’s any trouble the police will come.” I am shaking with anger and close to tears.
“Come on, Harriet. This sort of thing is pretty hard to take. Don’t get on your high horse with me.”
“Oh, to hell with it, if you can rub off whatever those clods wrote on the window, I’ll be grateful. But don’t put me down as crazy or something. I’m doing what I dreamed of doing.” I beg him not to tell Andrew. “Don’t spoil it for me, Fred.”
“Who’s spoiling it, I or those clods, as you call them? For God’s sake!” He stomps down the stairs and I put Patapouf on the leash and prepare to follow him.
When I get to the street I find Fred talking with two men in jogging suits. Whatever had been written on the shop windows has been erased. “Here’s my sister. Harriet,” Fred says, “meet Joe Hunter and Eddie North.” Joe is tall, over six feet, with a short black beard, and he must be over forty. Eddie, much younger, is not as handsome, has blond, crew-cut hair and small, bright blue eyes. It seems in order to shake hands.
“We want you to know that we’re nearby if you need help,” Joe says, looking at me hard, though kindly. “I gave your brother my card with the phone number.”
“Joe’s a psychiatrist,” Eddie says. “I work in the garage down the street. You are a brave woman to open a women’s bookstore here. It’s a tough neighborhood.”
“So I am learning.”
“These days,” Joe says, “every neighborhood is tough for gays. People think they have a weapon against us now, and it’s AIDS, of course.”
Everything is happening so fast—Fred turning up, two gay men entering my orbit—that I do not know what to say, or how. “It’s awfully kind of you to come,” I say. “The best thing about trouble is that you learn who your friends are! Thanks a lot.”
“We jog usually around half-past seven,” Joe says, “so if there are any more remarks on your windows we’ll clean up for you.”
“Every day?”
At this Fred laughs. “You are a pessimist, Harriet. It may never happen again.”
“Presumably it will,” says Joe. “Well, see you!” And they are off.
Fred and I go back to my apartment now to have a cup of coffee. “Nice fellows,” he says when we have settled at the table, “even though they are obviously faggots.”
“The father of two has to feel superior, does he?” Keyed up as I am, I cannot let that tone of his pass.
“You may think you have to take on the whole world but you do not have to take your brother on, Harriet. For God’s sake, woman!”
“Sorry, but you see I have had to absorb a lot in these first weeks. I guess I’m supersensitive.”
“Now you have a handy psychiatrist. He might help.”
“I don’t need a psychiatrist, Fred. Who was it who said ‘Very few people can stand reality,’ or words to that effect? I feel I’m beginning to learn about reality. And high time.”
“And what is reality?”
It takes me a moment to answer and I drink my coffee in silence while Fred looks at me with an inquisitive, slightly patronizing air. “Whatever it is it is not the sheltered life I led with Vicky. I’m suddenly in a big open space with nowhere to hide. And I’m meeting people who live in that open space and take the risks.”
“At least you can have a proper lock on your door, so I had better get to work.”
“I wish you understood,” I say. “It would make it easier to thank you.”
“How do you know I don’t understand?” he asks, taking the lock, screws, a screwdriver, and a hammer out of the bag.
“I always feel that you think I’m daft, that, as they say, I need help. It diminishes me.”
“That’s your interpretation,” Fred says coldly. “I’ll be gone in a half-hour,” and he runs down the stairs where I follow him, after washing the cups, and sit at my desk wondering why I have to be on the defensive, why he always manages to rub me the wrong way like a cat.
But there is no way to mend things now and I am glad when Joan arrives and I can go upstairs and call Angelica. I feel beleaguered. Joan is cross because of the Saturday deal; Fred is suggesting I see a psychiatrist; Angelica is betraying me … Oh dear, what is wrong with me? I ask myself.
“Why are you cross?” Angelica asks when she hears my tone of voice.
“You should not have called Fred.”
“I felt so anxious, Harriet, and why not call your brother?”
“He’s here now putting a new lock on the door in the shop.
I am capable of doing that myself. My family are the last people I need to get involved in what is, after all, a problem I can only solve alone.” I can hear my voice suddenly shrill.
“My dear, it is exactly because it is not a problem you can solve alone that I intervened.”
“It was an invasion of privacy, Angelica. I don’t care what you think or feel.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Whatever help I need must and will come from here, from the neighbors. Already a couple of men turned up to offer to help. They will erase any obscenities those goons write on my windows. You see …” But I have let the cat out of the bag by revealing there have been obscenities and have to explain that now. That done, I cut Angelica short by saying I have to go down and say goodbye to Fred.
I do not do that. I sit down in a state of great confusion and distress. The only thing that can help me, I know, is to be in the world I am trying to create—to be down in the store. There can be no salvation in arguing with a good old friend. Or with my stuffed-shirt brother for that matter. Joan, however, must be tamed somehow, and I invite her to come up for a sandwich lunch at noon and close the store for an hour.
Meanwhile I decide to take off until noon, get away for a couple of hours, take Patapouf with me, perhaps for a walk in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, where the trees must be already turning. There, perhaps, I can compose my mind.
7
For all the chaos inside me, outside it proves to be a perfect morning, and, when I have parked the car and released Patapouf, I stand there for a minute drinking in the light, one maple brilliant yellow and beyond it a scarlet one. The dogwood around a small formal garden near the entrance is the purple and dark red Vicky had always remarked on, for we had come here fairly often for a walk, especially in spring and fall. Her parents and various aunts and uncles are buried here, but what she enjoyed most was examining the amazing variety of tombs—huge classic temples, Victorian angels on top of granite peristyles, and even under what looked like a red marble table, a large dog! The marvelous trees … Mount Auburn is really an arboretum. The small ponds where ducks swim and dive for morsels below the surface. Dug into the hillside surrounding one of the ponds is a series of huge temples, which are tombs with wrought-iron gates and family names carved into the marble. They look like a village of stone houses for the dead.