by May Sarton
“Do call me Nan.”
“Then I’m Harriet, and we are friends.”
“You must come over some afternoon and see the children and maybe Phil could get home early for a drink. That would be fun.” She looks at her watch. “Heavens, it’s nearly five and my mother will be dealing with some kind of uproar. I must run.”
I persuade her to wait a minute while I find a copy of the Cather biography. “It’s expensive, I’m afraid.”
“Never mind, I’ve earned it. I tell Phil my salary as a home-maker should be at least ten thousand dollars and he has to agree though he doesn’t want to.”
When she has left I say to Joan, “Joan, I’m a wreck. But isn’t Nan a wonderful woman? I do enjoy her.”
But Nan’s visit is not, as I hoped it might be, the end of a demanding day. For just as I am about to go upstairs Patience dashes in for a minute to ask if it is all right if Carl delivers a load of wood tomorrow morning and charges seventy dollars. “That’s good news,” I say, “I paid a hundred and forty dollars for what was stolen. Great day! Joan will be here and can pay him when he comes.”
“Good, Alice is out in the car, and I must run.”
“There appear to be quite a few guardian angels around,” Joan says. “It’s not such a bad neighborhood after all.”
“Well, yes and no. The enemies have not been routed.”
“Shall I call you around ten to see if all is well?”
“I expect to be fast asleep by ten, so don’t worry.”
As usual, at around five, people begin to pile in to buy books, and for once I am glad to make my escape.
I lie down on my bed with Patapouf beside me and let the waves of anxiety and fatigue rise and fall inside my head. I almost never think about myself as sixty years old, but lying here, it comes to me that I am driving the old body rather hard. I am stiff from lifting and arranging the books. And under that irritating pain, which makes it impossible to get comfortable, is—and it really can’t be kept at bay—anxiety. What are those goons plotting now to try to drive me out? Smashing the windows of the store? Setting it on fire? The possibilities are endless. I try to shut them out by calling the Quality Inn and asking to speak to Martha. She has checked out an hour ago. So presumably David has persuaded her to go home with him and perhaps Joe has helped with that decision. In the end there is nothing to do but get up, make myself a stiff drink, and take a look at the news on television. And this I do.
But these days the news is hardly soothing—a black man beaten up in the South End, the terrible starvation in Ethiopia, another rocket blown up on its way, though that perhaps can be considered good news. Finally I make myself a cheese sandwich and drink a glass of milk. Now at last I go to bed but I keep waking to listen for any strange sound and there is so much traffic it is hard to tell if some truck braking might not be someone with evil in mind. There is the sound of broken glass now and I hurry downstairs in the dark. But it turns out to be from a collision of two cars down the street.
This will never do, I tell myself severely. Either you learn to live with anxiety or it will drive you nuts. Finally I fall asleep, only to have a strange dream about Vicky. She is shaking me awake and is very angry and keeps saying, “You fool, you fool, don’t you have an atom of common sense?” But what her anger is about is not clear. And I suppose my aching arms are at the root of the nightmare.
I wake up crying and can’t stop. I do not cry often or easily so it upsets me to feel so weak and defenseless, with even the Vicky of my dream turning against me. And maybe for good reason. It is true what I said to Nan. I have not really mourned her. I have buried our life together deep in my unconscious. I do not want to think about her. And no doubt the unmourned get their revenge, which is guilt.
12
After the tears, I must have slept hard because I wake up at half-past seven, late indeed, as I often wake at five and like to have time, unhurried time, in which to pull myself together. But the morning after my nightmare about Vicky I do not want to get up. I want to lie in bed and think, and so I do, grateful that there is no reason not to, since Joan will be opening the shop and my stint won’t start till two. Patapouf is still fast asleep under the bed, a late riser in her old age.
I make some coffee and take it to bed with a hard roll and marmalade. It is the first morning since the store opened that I permit myself the luxury of breakfast in bed. But it is not exactly pleasure after all, rather a need to think about Vicky and me, and our relationship, to look at it from the point of view of the new Harriet, one she did not know, I realize, for the more I consider it the more I see that I have changed in some fundamental ways since Vicky’s death. Whatever guilt I feel must be from the idea that I have been leaving her all these months, that I have cut myself off almost entirely from what she and I shared for thirty years.
Instead of looking back with nostalgia to our ritual tea by the fire with Patapouf and the old cat who has since died, I am engaged in pouring tea for total strangers, women off the street, anyone who happens to be around when the water is boiling. Instead of ordering an expensive but glorious tree peony—Vicky always teased me because when we went over garden catalogs my mouth watered, as though we were ordering food—instead of that self-indulgent pleasure, I am ordering books, tons of books, many of which she would have referred to as by “another one of those loony lesbian feminists.”
I am breaking out of the tight circle in which we lived very happily all those years. I am choosing to ally myself with, in some cases, social pariahs. Vicky, I tell myself, was not really a snob, but she expected the amenities to be observed, and she wanted to see people who shared her own interests. She liked men better than women, and preferred women who held positions of power to her colleagues’ wives.
Whatever would she have made of Chris and Mary, going off to El Salvador to help rebuild the villages destroyed by the army? She might well have said, “Why don’t they mind their own business? There are plenty of needy people right here in Dorchester.” And as for Sue Bagley, she would have given her short shrift, as I sometimes want to do myself. She might, on the other hand, have understood Martha better than I do. “Oh Vicky,” I murmur, and again those tears that shot out of me in the night begin to flow. What is happening to me?
Is it grief, as Nan and so many others would think, those who have commiserated with me in my widowhood? But is it grief I am feeling? No, I know it is not exactly that. Perhaps it is guilt for having been able to cut myself off with such objectivity from a good marriage, as it surely was. Joan, for instance, is mourning what has been taken from her. Maybe death is easier to handle than divorce. I wonder …
I rarely felt anger towards Vicky and when I did she closed the door on it and waited, as she said, for my “mood” to change. It was useless to argue that I was not in a mood but outraged because, for instance, she had just fired the gardener without telling me. He had cut off all the aster buds thinking they were seeds. It was extremely irritating, but it was really not his fault. “We have to have people around who know what they are doing,” she had said.
“The buds do look a little wizened at first,” I had explained. Danny, the fired gardener, was quite an old man and had worked for us for ten years, after all.
“I’m too busy, Harriet. I can’t take time to argue with you,” and she had closed the door to her study.
But why am I remembering that sort of thing and not all the trips we made to Europe together, and the warm family atmosphere she was brought up in and the huge old mansard-roofed house in Brookline? Her father and mother, especially her father, were the only people I ever knew who could tease Vicky and bring her down from her high horse. And they took me right into the family, even to Vicky’s mother saying at the start, “Don’t let Vicky order you around, will you? She is an only child, you know,” and she commended me for the strange reason that I had brothers.
“I’m afraid I’m used to being ordered around … a girl, with two brothers, you can imagine
.”
Vicky just smiled and paid no attention. “I am who I am,” was her refuge before any serious attack, “and I’m not about to change.”
What she did do was to treat me always with tender respect, and that was quite new to me and very dear, for I rarely got that at home, except from my father. In some ways, I recognize on this morning of reflection, Vicky was rather like my father, going her own way, but in such a charming and secure manner that it seemed quite all right. After all, who was hurt by that? No one. My father, who had been greatly loved, exuded warmth and good will, and so had Vicky.
“What would I ever do without you, darling?” was often her last word at night, as we curled up together in our bed with Patapouf at the end, and sometimes the cat, Porteous, purring between us. That is what I have lost, and what I miss, the tender loving, the physical closeness long after the first passionate year was over. So very slowly now as I lie here, allowing thoughts to take me where they will, I do come to the place of mourning. There will never again be that kind of sharing—of that I feel certain. I cannot imagine anyone ever sleeping in my bed again. My life from now on will be dispersed among a great many people, friends, strangers, strangers who will become friends like Joe and Eddie, but there never again will be that strong loving arm around my shoulders, and for a half-hour I feel the loss. I let the loss in and don’t lock it out as I have been doing. And I weep good tears.
I know I am weeping partly for me, for me who will never again know that sort of absolute love and security, that fortress against the world that two people who are truly married become. I feel vulnerable for the first time since Vicky’s death.
So with that in mind, I make myself get up and begin to face this day, wondering as I dress what the new Harriet will do with it, and what she will have to meet. And there on my calendar I see that it is Tuesday already and I am to go to Andrew’s for supper. What an occasion! One thing about my years with Vicky was that we did not see much of my brothers after my mother and father died. When they were alive there had been large family gatherings which Vicky only rarely wanted to attend. I was astonished when Fred showed an interest in the store, and now Andrew recognizing the special bond he and I share. I look forward to seeing where he lives, what atmosphere he has created for himself alone, but he is clearly not a happy man, sorry for himself, eating himself up with angers and constraints. We were none of us brought up to handle being outside the norm and Andrew has no doubt walled himself in in order to survive. Well, we shall see.
There is now the welcome sound of wood being stacked in the cellar and I hurry down to thank Alice and Patience’s friend. He proves to be a grizzled man in a red shirt with a boy with him who looks only about thirteen. They introduce themselves as Carl and Mike.
“How about a cup of coffee and a piece of coffee cake?” I ask, but they are anxious to get home and refuse the offer.
“The other lady gave us a check,” Carl explains.
There is something comforting about a cellar well-stacked with wood and I tell him how grateful I am, what a lift it has given us to be able to replace right away what has been stolen, and at such a good price.
“Glad to oblige.” He explains that the top layer is seasoned and what is under that had better be given six months before it is used. “You could start a fire all right, but it takes some skill. In the top layer there’s some apple. That’ll make a sweet-smelling fire for you any day now.” And Mike, eager to have me notice it, points out some white birch.
The woodpile has taken on during this talk a personality, a reality all its own, and I savor it. When we part we shake hands and Carl gives me his phone number and says to call when I need another load.
When I go upstairs to the store, there is Martha, who rushes at me and gives me a warm excited hug. “I’ve just sold a painting!” she says. “I can’t believe it—a sort of bag lady, dragging in parcels. She wanted to buy it and I let her have it for ten dollars a month.”
Of course I recognize the woman, she who does not like Gothic novels, but her buying a painting does surprise me. “She’s quite a character … comes in often to sit down and wait for her bus.”
“She said it was the roots of the trees that fascinate her, the thought that trees are as wide around under the earth as above it.” For me there has been a nightmarish quality to those roots. How wrong my perception of them is! “She said it was an archetypal image. Oh she talked on and on, and then I drove her to her apartment because she really couldn’t carry it and all those parcels. She lives with her husband who is bedridden, a terribly depressing place, filled with books and magazines and the hospital bed taking up half the living room—her husband, a wrinkled old baby, whimpering in his sleep. I couldn’t wait to get away, but I must say she has guts, that woman. Imagine living like that, and all they have is Social Security plus a very little in savings they have to draw on, she says.”
The last thing I expected was to see Martha in a state of euphoria, interested in someone besides herself, and I am struck dumb.
“Oh Harriet, I am so excited I forgot to tell you the most important thing. David came to the Quality Inn before four and persuaded me to go with him to Dr. Hunter’s. At that point I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted, so I agreed. I was awfully glad to see David, to see him not angry for a change, and very subdued.”
“The world appears to be turning right side up again. We have wood and Martha is all right,” I say, turning to Joan, who gives me a surreptitious wink. “How did you like Dr. Hunter?”
“I liked him. He wants us both to go back next week. He doesn’t say much. I guess I talked a lot and he listened, but his listening was very supportive. I mean I didn’t feel he was judging me or David and when it came to David’s hitting me so hard, David cried. Nothing is settled but we are going to try to be gentle and not argue for a week.”
“That,” I say, “is optimistic.” I am slightly irritated by Martha’s state of mind, so positive and on top of things, when I remember what she put me through yesterday.
“I know,” she says, giving me a wary look. “I don’t know what I would have done without you. You saved me from despair, Harriet. I’ll never forget it.”
“I’m glad if I was of help, but now, Martha, I really have to have a talk with Joan about business matters.”
I feel ashamed when she has left and I turn to Joan. “How do psychiatrists manage not to be bored?”
“My guess is they sort of black out until a real clue is uttered and then they wake up.”
“I made that up about a business talk.”
“But,” Joan says, “it’s high time we did have a talk. So much has been happening lately I didn’t want to add another anxiety or burden, but we have been losing money. That big sale on Saturday after the Globe mess just about saved us.”
“Oh well,” I say, “I told Jonathan we would probably lose money for a year at least, so he is prepared.”
“But are you prepared?”
At this I have to laugh. “Of course not. I hoped I might be wrong. Now we must think about getting the store known. What about a small ad in the Globe?”
“Worth a try.”
“What about a poster we could pin up here and there? At Sage’s, for example?”
“That might work. Do you know anyone good at that sort of thing? What we need to think about is a logo or some kind of device.”
“Oh.” I ponder this. “‘Good Books for Good Women,’” but as soon as I utter the words I see how ridiculous they sound and so does Joan, so we can’t stop laughing. “Andrew might know someone at that high-tech place where he works. I’ll ask him when I see him tonight. Meanwhile I had better have a look at the accounts.”
Joan suggests that I take them upstairs so I will not be interrupted, and so I do. What becomes clear almost at once is that the big expense is ordering. I have been ordering anything and everything that looks interesting. Two of each except for obvious best-sellers when I order five. Maybe I have been ext
ravagant, but we found early on that publishers are maddeningly slow about refilling an order, so I choose to avoid that by ordering a lot. My instinct is to go on as we have been doing for six months, meanwhile stimulating sales in every way we can.
It is not hopeless but I realize that I have not put my mind on the business and it is high time that I do.
13
When I walk into Andrew’s apartment, high up on the wrong side of Beacon Street, I don’t know what to expect, but whatever I was expecting was not this rather cozy Victorian atmosphere, comfortable chairs upholstered in red velvet, thick tapestry curtains that shut out the traffic, books everywhere. It is a studio, really, with just one bedroom off the big room, lighted chiefly from the large skylight.
“What a beautiful room, Andrew.”
“You’re surprised, I hope. You didn’t think your brother had taste,” he teases.
“I knew my brother had taste, but this seems so …” I hesitate before a word that might offend. I censor conservative, nostalgic, enclosed, secret, and finally Andrew supplies the word himself.
“Esoteric?”
“Maybe.”
“I planned it around Father’s English desk. When we divided up the family stuff I got that and the two Victorian chairs.”
“It’s a sort of private re-creation then. I did think of the word ‘nostalgic’ when I was looking for a word.”
“Maybe nostalgic for something that never really existed. You know as well as I do, Harriet, that I never felt at home in that house, so I made this into what feels like home to me now. I love this place,” he says. “Sit down and tell me what you would like to drink. I have a bottle of champagne on ice but if you would prefer scotch or a martini, that’s available too.”
“Champagne of course. This is a celebration, Andrew, isn’t it?”
Suddenly he smiles his warm smile which lights up his narrow dark face as though in smiling a mask slides away and the young ardent boy under it looks out. “It is for me. I never in my wildest dreams thought you and I could have anything in common. You appeared to live somewhere far away on a peak with Vicky, so serene and safe. There was no room for misfits.”