She stood in silent thought. “All right. Don’t come out into the kitchen until I get the shades down.”
He sat until he saw the bright kitchen lights go on. He stood up and felt his way toward the kitchen. He lurched alarmingly and hit something. It went over with a loud crash. She came running. “Oh, God! The lamp.”
She helped him, got him safely into the kitchen and in a chair at the kitchen table. She said, “I make lousy coffee.”
“Just hot and black. All I need.”
When it was on the stove she came and sat opposite him. “This doesn’t seem like you, Fletcher. Like what I thought you were.”
He felt that his grin was idiotic. “Long story. Remember the scrap las’ night?”
“I remember that silly woman yelling at me.”
“You left,” he said heavily. “She was still yelling. Jane told her to shut up. She turned on Jane. I was standing there. Standing right there. Told Jane about seeing her Saturday night at the lake. Seeing her in the moonlight with a college boy in a rubber raft. Getting up, putting her suit back on, for God’s sake.”
He wanted to giggle at the startled look on Laura’s face. “What!”
“Just that. Just like I said. And Jane confessed. Told me flat she’d done it. Bitch. Dirty sneaky bitch. Never knew she was like that. Almost killed her. Had the gun on her. Finger on the trigger. She tells me go ahead. And I can’t do it. The kids in the house, I guess. Stopped me. Something stopped me. All mixed up today. Ellis sticks a knife in my back in the meeting. Sent him away. Got a little drunk. Thinking all night about you. Me being damn prude. Loyal husband or something. No future in that noise. Wanted you and came here. Too … drunk.…”
And then she was shaking him and the coffee was steaming hot in front of him. He managed to get it to his lips. He burned his mouth. It burned its way down into his stomach. She sat opposite him again. Her face was blurred. He tried to smile at her. And then it was tremendously important to let her know how good the good years had been—how perfect and how precious.
He talked and sometimes his words would seem to fade away as though someone else were saying them in the next room, and then they would be loud and she would shush him. He knew he was being incoherent, but it was very necessary that she should know.
She had him by the arm with surprising strength and he was out in the night again. “What’s … what’s going on?”
“I’m going to drive you home. Come on now. Here’s the car. Up you go.”
He sprawled in on the seat. She slammed the door and he pulled himself erect. He sat, waiting for her to start the car, and then the door was open again and she was pulling at him.
“You change your mind, baby?” he asked thickly.
“About what? Come on. Get out. You’re home. Careful, now.”
He peered around and saw that she had indeed driven into his driveway. The house was dark. He remembered that Jane was at that lake. Kids were away. At her command, when they reached the front door, he dug laboriously for his keys. She unlocked the door and swung it open. He couldn’t find the light switch. Somebody had moved it. Wrong house, maybe. She found it. He banged into the doorframe, found the hall, and walked down to his room. The hall kept tilting and bumping his shoulder. He sat down on the bed and saw her go to the closet, get a hanger, hang his coat on it. With the bedroom light on he saw for the first time that she had changed to crisp tailored slacks and a white shirt cut like a man’s.
“Look … wonnerful in that outfit, Laura, honey.”
“Lift your foot. Okay, the other one. No, don’t fall over until I get that shirt off.”
She unbuttoned his shirt deftly and pulled it off. “Say, you’re pretty good at this. Old Ellis come home stinky?”
“My father used to take a night off once in a while. Lie back now. Up further. That’s it. Brother, you really took on a load.”
She undid his belt, unzipped his trousers while he tried, fumblingly, to help. She went to the foot of the bed, took the cuffs of his trousers and with small hard jerks pulled them out from under him until they were free and she could draw them off over his bare feet. She found a pants hanger and hung those up too. She turned out the light and then pulled the sheet up over him.
He reached blindly in the darkness and caught her wrist, pulled her awkwardly down onto him.
“No, Fletcher. Not here. And not the way you are.”
“I know that,” he said, his mind momentarily clear. “Let me hold you. Just one minute.”
She relaxed and stretched out beside him, on top of the sheet. He held her. He said, “Big damn fool, eh?”
“Not all the way, darling. Just a bit foolish tonight.”
“Thanks. You pick up stray dogs too?”
“Not often.”
“Look, tomorrow? Want to see you tomorrow, honey.”
“Tomorrow and sober. And not at my house and not here.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere in the hills, darling. Somewhere outdoors.”
“Hey, how about a picnic?”
She laughed softly. “A picnic, then. Phone me.” She kissed him lightly on the ear and left. He listened but he did not hear the front door close. He did hear her car door, and heard her drive away. The headlights swept into the room and then left it in a darkness that seemed deeper than before. Thinking about her seemed to be the only thing in the world that would drive the small obscene cavorting little doll figures out of his mind. And he thought about Laura and how she would be, and soon he went to sleep.
He woke up with a blinding, crashing hangover that effectively blocked out any consecutive thought. The only reality was the pain and dry thirst and quivering nausea, and until they were relieved, he could think of nothing except ways and means. He had a vague memory of himself as a hooting, wavering figure, stomping through the thick night of the city, but he had no room in his head for remorse or guilt. He managed to sit up by degrees. His watched had stopped. The bedroom clock had stopped. He guessed it was late. Let it be late.
After he worked his way out of bed by degrees, he padded miserably into the bathroom. He held onto the sink and drew a glass of water. It went down and came right back up. He retched miserably for a long time. The next glass stayed down and he followed it with three more, then got into the shower. He stood under the spray, mechanically changing the temperature to hot, then cold, then hot again, over and over, while he wondered if this business of Jane was going to turn him into a prime alcoholic. They always said the problem drinkers drank because of some basic inadequacy. Jane had neatly proved him inadequate. Insufficient.
Suddenly he remembered Laura. He stood very still under the cold spray. Good Lord! Very dignified little routine, that was. Sloppy drunk and on the make. She’d brought him home. Undressed him, even. All very brisk and efficient, and you wouldn’t think she could cope in exactly that way.
He felt a little better. He toweled himself harshly, drank some more water. It didn’t help the thirst, just made him feel bloated. He put on fresh shorts and socks and went to the phone, dialed the time number first.
“The time is now sixteen minutes of ten,” the metallic voice said. “The time is now sixteen minutes of ten. The time is now fifteen …” He hung up, fighting, as always, against the urge to thank the mechanical recording.
He dialed the plant number, asked for himself. Miss Trevin said, “Good morning, Mr. Wyant’s office.”
“Miss Trevin, I’m a little under the weather this morning.”
“Oh, I was so worried. I called you a little while ago. There wasn’t any answer. Is it serious, Mr. Wyant?”
“No. A little touch of heat exhaustion I think. I might try to get in later in the day. Anything cooking?”
“Mr. Forman stuck his head in the office about nine thirty, and then he went away without saying a word when he saw you weren’t at your desk. And there was a person to person call from Mr. Corban. What will I do if it comes in again?”
“Tell the o
perator I’ll phone Mr. Corban tomorrow morning at ten o’clock at K.C.I.”
“I think when he couldn’t get you, he talked to Mr. Forman.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, maybe the call won’t come in again.”
“Should I tell Mr. Forman you’re ill?”
“You might do that please.”
“If you don’t feel right, Mr. Wyant, you shouldn’t try to come in today. There isn’t anything terribly important lined up that I know of. Mr. Fedder has an appointment for ten thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Hold the fort, Miss Trevin.”
“Yes sir. I certainly will. I hope you feel better.”
He hung up. Jane had stayed over. She probably wouldn’t be in any great rush to get back. He put his hand on the phone to lift it and call Laura, then changed his mind. He went into the kitchen, put coffee on, went to the front door and got the morning paper. He remembered the milk and got it out of the box. It felt a little warm, but he put it away in the refrigerator. There was a hard throb in his head that felt as though it bulged the bone over his right eye with each pulsation. Lord, two rough nights in a row. If the geometric progression continued, tonight was going to kill him for sure. Laura. A vague memory of holding her slimness beside him, of lips touching his ear in a good night kiss. “Phone me.”
He went back in to the phone. She answered before it seemed to have a chance to ring at all. “Hello?”
“Laura?”
“That wasn’t shrewd of me, was it? Snatching the phone. Now you know I was sitting here waiting. How are you? Bleeding from the eyes, darling?”
“I’m sorry, officer. I didn’t get the license number of that truck.”
“Hmmm.”
“Very messy, Laura. Very sad. You’re a patient type. You listened to all my drunken woes.”
“I take it … she isn’t back yet.”
“No.”
“Do you remember about our picnic?”
“You mean leave the office?”
“You’re too smart to talk like this from the office, dear.”
“Right. I begged off today. And I was trying to remember something. I knew it was a good something, but I couldn’t quite catch hold of it.”
“From where I sit I can see a very tricky item. Ellis’ people gave it to us. Red leather, with thermos bottles and dishes and things. Guaranteed to collect ants.”
“It might be a shade cooler in the hills.”
“It might, darling. It just might.”
“I’m without vehicle.”
“I was supposed to take ours in this morning. But I didn’t. The end of that road of yours with the elfin name? In … oh … fifteen minutes?”
“Don’t expect me to scintillate. I’m still hurting.”
“Fletcher, my silly heart is going boom, boom, boom. Like drums.”
“Here too.”
“Hang up, darling. I can’t. And time is going by.”
He hung up gently, winced as he stood up too quickly. He shaved in frantic haste, promising to clean the razor later. He looked at his sports shirts, selected one, then stood for a moment, feeling an odd sharp pain. The shirt was a soft shade of grey, very lightweight. Jane had bought it for him and it was of imported Egyptian cotton. She had paid far more for it than he ever would have paid for a shirt. It had not been any sort of occasion. She had seen it and liked it and bought it. He put on the new grey dacron slacks, the comfortable moccasin-type shoes. He made a quick survey in Jane’s full-length mirror. Okay. Just a shade pasty and a bit puffy around the eyes. He held his hands out and his fingers trembled, but not too badly. He cooled the steaming coffee with faucet water and drank it at the sink, using it to wash down three aspirin.
When he went out the front door, testing the snap lock after he pulled it shut, the full heat of midmorning struck him, and he realized that the house had retained some of the deceptive coolness of early morning.
He had not thought of the walk to the corner as being strange and difficult, and yet it was. Children played with a black cocker spaniel in a neighboring yard, and they stopped their play to stare curiously at him. He saw through a picture window, saw a vaguely familiar woman straighten up, a dust cloth in her hand, and stare out at him. It was the same sort of feeling as skipping school. Guilt and recklessness. The sun was a tangible weight against the nape of his neck and against his shoulders through the thin shirt. He glanced back at the house and saw the hills beyond it and saw, high and far away in the morning sun, the red barn. Somehow the crazy week had started with the red barn. Started with that feeling of drifting discontent. He knew that there was an unpleasant enchantment, a spell about the place. Perhaps going there with Laura might exorcise that particular spirit.
When he got to the corner he crossed to the other side of the drive and stood in the shade of a red maple to wait for her. Traffic was fast on the drive. Gasoline stink lingered in the air. The tires made sleek ripping noises and down toward the city, in the distance, the cars disappeared into heat shimmer, with chrome glinting, and a look of wetness on the wide asphalt with its sharp yellow lines.
He waited for five minutes and then the Corbans’ green sedan came up out of the heat haze, slowing to stop beside him, and he saw Laura’s smile as he opened the door and got in beside her. She drew away from the curb without looking behind her, and a car blatted angrily at them.
“Where to, darling?” she asked. “Any ideas?”
“There’s a red barn I can see from my bedroom window. It is a long way away, and quite high, and it looks pleasant up there, somehow. Whenever I look at it, it makes me feel restless. I’ve never seen it close by, but it looks abandoned. And we’ll be able to see the city from there, I think, and look down at the river.”
“How do we get there?”
“It will have to be trial and error, Laura. Turn left at the next light.”
He turned and looked at her. She wore a white, off-the-shoulder blouse, a lurid peasant skirt, flat gold sandals with long thongs wound and tied around her ankles. The car seemed too big, the wheel too high for her. She wore a small intent frown as she drove. After they made the corner, he took the wheel. She sat curled beside him and he could feel her eyes on him. He remembered the look of her body at the Sunday party and it gave him a breathless empty feeling.
Chapter Fifteen
After Jane fled from the breakfast table and shut herself in the bedroom Monday morning, shut herself in the room where for the first time, with Fletcher in the house, she had slept alone, she lay across her bed and waited for tears but they did not come. There had been too many tears in the night.
Fletcher had driven away, and she heard the muted sound of the children talking. She sat up on the edge of the bed and told herself that she couldn’t sit like a lump for the rest of her life, grieving over a fact that couldn’t be changed.
There had never been any horror like that of hearing Martha talking in that deadly tone and knowing that she couldn’t be stopped, knowing that Fletcher was standing there, listening, knowing that it was killing something inside of him.
She knew that there was one thing in life that was absolutely certain. You pay, in some way, for everything you do. There is no mercy in the court. And it had been absurd to think for one moment that there would be no payment for that nightmare at the lake. She had known that in the shocking instant that it was happening.
There had been a strange pleasure in feeling the hard smash of his open hand against her face. And there would have been more of the same feeling in the hot smash of the bullet. But that was last night. And this was today. And you kept living. You didn’t die because you willed it when you lay there alone in that rubber raft, watching the tremble of his hands as he lit a cigarette. No matter what, you went on living, and if life became pointless then it was something to be endured, and it could best be endured by rising to it, not sitting like a fat lump on a bed and wailing for what had been, but could never be again.
It was easy enough to say t
hat he was unfair. One slip in fifteen years, and then a very unwilling slip, a slip against which you had fought like an animal. But the real fault had been out there in the lake, just before that. When he had pulled the suit off over your unprotesting legs. So you pay for that.
She remembered the Chicago business. The way her mind had crawled with all sorts of imaginings. His mind, with that special sickness of jealousy, would be doing that now. There was one vague chance, she knew. He might, for the sake of the children, give up the idea of divorce. They would live together like strangers, and that, perhaps, might be worse for the children than any divorce. If he decided that, it would be her chance. And she knew, coldly, how she would handle it. She would determinedly set out to seduce him. If she could manage it, perhaps they might get back a fraction of what they had once had. The magic might be gone forever, but a new relationship of comfortable mutual need would be better than nothing.
She straightened her shoulders. Confession had been made. And she was not going to become a mealy thing, whining around for forgiveness. If there could be any forgiveness in his heart, he would forgive a calm woman with some pride left, not a groveling thing. She briskly changed to the most attractive clothes she could think of. She took a lot of time with her hair and with her make-up. She cleaned off her nail polish and replaced it with fresh.
And then she walked out with her head up. The children shouldn’t be around during this, the worst time. She remembered Madge Trumbull’s invitation. Madge had left it open. She asked the children what they thought. It was obvious that Judge and Dink knew something was up. Something that threatened their emotional security. Yet, in the canny way of children, they did not try to find out what it was. The children took their cue from her, and drummed up a proper amount of enthusiasm, and trotted off to pack. She phoned Fletcher and he was in conference and she asked Miss Trevin to tell him to phone her back.
On the phone she managed to keep her voice cool and polite and formal, though she was perilously close to tears.
After lunch they taxied, with luggage, down to the Forman parking lot and took the Pontiac and headed for the lake a hundred miles away.
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