I tried to hold away the dark. I tried to push it back. Not yet, I kept saying to myself. Not yet. I don’t want it to be dark.
But it grew dark.
At nine, cramped and stiff from sitting for so long, I got up and went to the kitchen. When Eric came back dinner would be ready for him. I even felt regretful that, because of the mosquitos, we wouldn’t be able to have it outdoors, on the patio.
The casserole was ready at ten.
I looked at the clock and pulled the steaming dish out of the oven. He really had better walk in that door within the next few minutes, I thought anxiously as I set the table. So we can have it while it’s hot.
And then I sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and knew he wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t coming back in time to eat this casserole, at any rate.
Further than that, I didn’t allow myself to think.
After awhile I put the casserole, now cool, into the refrigerator. Then I looked at the brandy bottle — and then looked away.
If I had so much as one snifter of it I would finish the bottle. I didn’t want Eric to come back and find me blind drunk. I would not add insult to injury.
I sat with a book in the living room, jumping at every sound. It might as well have been upside down: I didn’t see a word of it. It was something to pretend to do, that was all.
I got up and stretched elaborately, as if I were on stage, performing in a play. I stretched for the benefit of an unseen audience, and in the same way I went lightly into the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and washed my face.
Then I went to the bedroom, pulled down the covers, got into a nightgown, and climbed in. I slept lightly at first, listening for the sound of Eric’s key in the lock. I would want to greet him lovingly, say I was sorry too, and then hold him in my arms.
I had to stay awake for that.
• • •
The next thing I knew it was a bright morning, and the other side of the bed was empty.
I was alone, and I had to face it. Eric had not come back, and he was not going to come back.
I was still in bed, not wanting to get up, not wanting to get up ever again, when the front doorbell rang.
Hope springs eternal … I sprang up and raced to the door.
On the doorstep was a young kid, about seventeen, standing on one foot and looking impatient, as if I had taken forever to answer, which was far from the case. I said, “Yes?” and then caught sight of Eric’s Porsche.
He had an accident and he’s dead, my mind went, and I felt faint. Eric was dead … he’d had an accident.
“Miss Stewart?” the kid asked.
“Yes, what happened?” I asked, with everything gone whirly and dark around me, and a taste of brass in my mouth. “What’s happened?”
“There’s the car,” he said, pointing. Then he handed me a scrap of paper. “There’s the car,” he repeated, “and this is for you. You don’t have to tip me, he did.”
Then he trotted off, the smell of his adolescent sweat leaving a trail behind him. I saw him straddle a bike and take off, rounding the bend of the road and then vanishing.
I read the note still standing in the open doorway. It was from Eric, and it read:
Here’s the car, this boy will leave it with you. I’ve taken the train. I need time to think, and I feel you do too. I feel we must have some interim period. I apologize for what must seem brutal behavior, but I imagine that I will suffer for that far more than you.
For now,
Eric.
There was a numbness in me, thankfully, and I did all the things people do when the sky falls on them. I simply got ready for the day, that was about it, and nothing hurt yet, really. I was too deadened for pain, or protestation.
I just had to accept that there was to be “an interim period” between Eric and me. The pain would come later: for now there was only a dumb acknowledgment of a schism I could never, in my wildest imaginings, have believed possible.
17.
I didn’t think I was going to discuss it, but I did. I suppose it was all too much to keep locked inside: I was dreading that ride back home later in the day, and — even worse — leaving Eric’s car parked on his street. His apartment faced the front, and when I saw lights on inside, I knew it would be a strange and awful feeling simply to leave the car and walk away, go on to my own apartment.
So I talked it over with Caroline.
It was, after all, the best thing I could have done. She was very understanding. She said, “Look on it as a good thing, in one way, Jennie. No, don’t interrupt, just listen. You say you and he never had a knockdown, drag-out fight before.”
“Never,” I assured her. “Not about anything. No harsh words, never.”
“Well,” she said slowly, “I wouldn’t call that the best thing for either of you. My dear, men and women are natural adversaries. It’s the nature of the beast … beasts. The relationship between lovers isn’t supposed to be a gentle, kind, and passive one. A woman and a man, behaving like brother and sister, all sweetness and light — there’s no passion there. The sex act, after all, is a contest, two wrestlers, really. You show me a couple who never had harsh words, and I’ll show you a pallid union. All worthy relationships have a love-hate basis. This is right, Jennie. Love isn’t pussyfooting. Never to have to say you’re sorry. What hog-wash! Love — passionate love — is a thrilling duel of bodies, wits and emotions, and you don’t fall into agreement simply to keep the peace. You go to that bed two separate and separately-functioning entities, I assure you, Jennie. The sanctuary is merely in the fact of the two of you facing the world together, each a bulwark for the other. But you don’t face it pacifying each other. That’s a copout.”
She had a good deal to say on the subject, and if she didn’t convince me that it was really all for the best, at least she gave me some comfort, some hope. She asserted that Eric’s idea of an interim period would work in my favor, not against it. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. “It’s true,” she said, “as so many adages are.”
She also admitted that she had a new and much better picture of Eric, that she might have thought him my pawn, but was now convinced that he had a mind of his own.
“My pawn?” I repeated, shaken. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re very self-willed, very assured. And I assumed that he’d become henpecked.”
“Dear God,” I cried. “Is that what I’m like?”
“I think you’re adorable. But you need a good, strong man. And I guess he is.” She shook her head, smiling a little. “Imagine him dealing you a blow,” she said. “And then walking out on you. Fancy it!”
She wormed out of me the reason for Eric’s anger. I told her about Peter’s pursuit of me, and said that Eric apparently had sensed it.
“It would be difficult not to,” she agreed. “I saw it, why shouldn’t he?”
“But that wasn’t really it.”
“Oh?”
“It was Tony,” I said.
“Really? Suppose you elucidate, Jennie.”
I looked for some sign of censure, or displeasure from her. Something that would warn me that it was not wise to go on. But there was none. Her face was as open and candid as before. So I explained.
I said, “Eric, I think now, saw my reaction to Anthony from the begining. I think, you know, that he was aware of it before I was.”
“Aware of what?” she asked, looking closely at me.
“Why … why, that I had a gut reaction. Nothing serious, you understand. Simply that I responded to his attractiveness.”
She gave me a shrewd glance. “You’re not by far the first,” she commented. “For Tony, they fall like flies, as the saying goes.”
“I realize that.”
“Are you very attracted to him?”
“I was. I didn’t acknowledge it. Good heavens, you can respond to any number of men and not be serious about them.”
“I rather threw you together.”
&nb
sp; “Not intentionally.”
“I wonder. Perhaps it was intentional.”
“Oh, no, and for goodness’ sake, don’t blame poor Tony.”
“In many ways I do blame him.”
“But why? He’s done nothing!”
“I’m not all that sure.”
Coincidentally enough, Tony chose that moment to appear in the doorway. He gave me one of his dashing smiles. I looked away quickly; in spite of my troubled state, I had only to glimpse that wonderful smile to quake inwardly with an unwanted response. I marveled at the inconsistency of the human mind. You could at one and the same time be wretched with misery about one man, and tremble for another. I was furious with myself, sick at my involuntary duplicity. I took it out on him.
“What’s up, love?” he asked me. “You look exceeding cross.”
“I don’t think I want your diagnosis,” I said coldly. “I very much dislike someone’s categorizing my moods.”
“Yes,” Caroline said icily, backing me up. “Just do shut up, if you please.”
“I say, what?” he asked, wonderingly. “Are you cross too, Caroline? But then you are very often cross these days.”
He tried a brilliant smile. “I say, shall we go somewhere, the three of us? Get the cobwebs out of our brains?”
“God in heaven,” Caroline cried. “Men! Primitive to the core. Go away! Can’t you see Jennie and I are having a serious talk?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Then something is wrong. Can’t I help?”
“Will you leave us alone,” Caroline shouted. “I would think, Tony, that now you’re no longer a child, you’d have learned some savoir faire.”
I saw him pale. For an Englishman, being told he is lacking in savoir faire is like a slap in the face. His manner changed instantly. I had heretofore seen Anthony Cavendish — in the main — at his best.
“Sorry,” he said coldly, and then, cruelly, “I don’t suppose it has ever occurred to you, Caroline, that few men give large chunks of their time to lonely old ladies. Naturally, if even that isn’t enough — ”
He turned on his heel and walked out. Caroline’s face was bitter and angry. She didn’t say anything, and I imagine she was unable to at the moment. Anthony’s words had been too wounding.
I started to say something, but at a quick shake of her head decided not to. Nothing I could have uttered would have eased that verbal blow. Her throat, clearly, was tight.
Now, I thought, I — with my problems — had made everyone else miserable. I got up. “I’m sorry,” I said. “We’ll talk again. Please don’t worry. This is something I’ll have to deal with. Let’s just resume our pleasant summer. I’ll be heading for the city in a short time. But you know I have two weeks coming soon; I’ll be here the whole time. I’m looking forward to it, and I don’t want it spoiled.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, “to make it lively and fun.”
“Thanks much. Caroline, I’ll skip lunch with you. I’ve decided to make tracks early. It’s better that way.”
I bent down and kissed her cheek. “Adieu, cherie.”
“Adieu,” she answered. “Je t’aime.”
“Et moi aussi. Sois sage, Caroline.”
“Naturellement, et tu.”
I started to walk away, but she called me back again. She said, “Un moment.”
“Oui? Quoi, cherie?”
“Oh … nothing.” But she pulled my head down, and this time she kissed me. It was a heartfelt kiss, full on the mouth. I was very affected, and it brought back memories. My childhood, of course, when I was kissed that way by my father and mother. It was like a bond of solid friendship, and I thought about it during the long drive back to the city.
It made me feel protected, secure, cherished. And it made the miles to Manhattan seem shorter, less lonely.
• • •
When Eric hadn’t called me, either at work or at home, by the following Tuesday, I phoned him up at his office. His secretary put me through, after a, “Hi, Jan, how are you?”
And then his voice.
His voice sounded perfectly normal, no anger, no quavers, no chilliness. “Hello,” he said. “How are you?”
“All right, I suppose. You?”
“Busy as hell, but that’s nothing new. What’s up with you?”
I swallowed. “Are we on that kind of basis now?”
There was a short silence. Then, “I think for a while we are,” he said. “I think we both have a few things to mull over.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” he said. “I would imagine you would feel the same way.”
I fiddled with the blotter on my desk. “You know I had planned to take the next two weeks as full vacation,” I said. “Did you forget that, Eric?”
“No, I know you’d planned that,” he said.
I swallowed again. “Are you coming down?” I asked.
He was quiet and thoughtful. “I don’t know what I’ll do,” he said, in a light, unaccented voice. “You see, Jan, I don’t quite know where I stand.”
I said, passionately, “Why, all of a sudden, don’t you know where you stand?”
“Jan,” he said, “I have this ineluctable feeling that one of us — perhaps both of us — is at a crossroads of some nebulous kind. That nothing is as certain as it seemed a few weeks ago.”
“That’s the way you feel,” I said, staring at my wall calendar. “I don’t feel that way.”
“I think you do. Maybe you aren’t conscious of it, but I think you do, Jan. And we must be wary of our next steps.”
“Does this mean you’re not going to join me at the shore at all?”
“As I said, I don’t know.”
I couldn’t believe it. That I had been hit, all of a sudden, with this thing. That, out of the blue, our whole life together was in danger. I had been dry-eyed and numb, trying to absorb Caroline Lestrange’s advice, and wisdom. Thinking that all I had to do was pass on her admonitions to Eric, take heed of them myself and then everything would be all right.
This was clearly not the case. Apparently my life was in a sorry mess, and this reasonable man over the telephone, with his measured words and calm demeanor, had suddenly become a stranger.
Or an enemy.
But why? I hadn’t attacked anyone, hadn’t maltreated my mother, and certainly hadn’t maliciously been traiterous toward Eric Why did he treat me like —
Like an enemy?
There was virtually nothing left to say.
I said, “I see. It’s up to you, then. At any rate, I’ll be in East Hampton for the next two weeks, beginning this week-end. You know that, and I can only add that if you decide to join me, I’ll welcome you with open arms. Be well, Eric, and for now, good-bye.”
I hung up before he could answer.
And then I escaped to the ladies’ room, went into one of the booths and cried. I hadn’t really cried that way since I was ten years old and read about Beth’s death, on the lonely seacoast with her sister Jo, in Little Women.
This isn’t happening to me, I told myself, sobbing. It simply can not be happening to me.
I got through the day, and the week, somehow, some way.
18.
When I drove out to the Island on the next Saturday morning, there had been no word from Eric. I saw now what happened to many people. One minute you thought you had the world in the palm of your hand, and in the next, knew you had been wrong, dead wrong. You’d lost, only you hadn’t known it.
But I had gotten my aplomb back. Crying was over: I was composed, steely, and — if not philosophical — at least able to cope.
Caroline said as much when I went to say hello to her on my arrival, around three in the afternoon. “Hello, dear, sweet girl,” she said, holding out her arms. “You seem so much better. Is everything all right, then?”
“Yes, just fine,” I said. “Eric will have none of me, but I plan to go on living just the same.”
“What do you mean
, he’ll have none of you?”
I shrugged. “He’s thinking things over.”
She was really shocked. “I can’t believe it’s come to that!”
“It has. And now, Caroline, not another word about it. There’s nothing more I can do and I’m just damned well going to take it in stride. I’m paying you some of my hard-earned cash for this holiday, and I’m determined to have a smashing time.”
“You’re picking up Tony’s vocabulary,” she said darkly. “No wonder your young man got the wind up.”
“Phooey.”
“I shall see that Anthony has nothing whatever to do with you.”
“Caroline, don’t you dare to — ”
“I shall put him in Coventry,” she said, decisively. “It’s just about time I showed him a thing or two.”
I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was seizing on this episode to make Anthony a scapegoat for all the men who would never be drawn to her again — as they had once been drawn in the years of youth and beauty — and whom she wanted to pay back for the harsh penalty of growing old and undesirable.
Tony Cavendish was handy as a whipping boy, and besides, he had said that awful thing to her.
“… spending large chunks of their time with lonely old ladies …”
I had the distinct feeling that Caroline Lestrange would never, in this life, forgive those unpardonable words.
• • •
No word came from Eric as the hours passed, and then the days. It was as if we had dated briefly, decided we were not compatible, and so had closed the book on that little encounter.
Or it was as if it had never been.
I began to pass almost all my vacation hours with Caroline. I might be playing bright-eyes and bushy-tailed, but I was very much in need of succor, and I took it from her. I would have bedded down at her house, if she had asked me to. The cottage had become hateful to me: it pinpointed, in every way, my aloneness.
When I wasn’t with her, she called constantly. “Are you all right, Jennie?”
And, as if I were in a sickbed in some hospital, my answer would be, “Yes, fine, better every day.”
“Come early for lunch.”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 115