Other People's Love Affairs

by D. Wystan Owen

  Mrs. Ashford smoking at table. On the first morning, she made Mr.

  Harris an egg and watched him put strips of toast in the yolk. “A hot breakfast is the key to long living,” he said. His appetite wasn’t large, but he took boyish pleasure in eating that way. For her own part, she took pleasure as well; a saint would have a pure soul as well as a body.

  There were pictures of Mr. Harris’s wife in the house: danc-

  ing, walking at the seaside in Glass. There was a large one in the corridor from when she was young, seated in a dress with a collar; each time he passed it he would straighten the frame. Louise

  liked to stand before it, alone, imagining what sort of perfume she might once have worn, what shade of lipstick. In bed at night, she dreamed of the woman, and of Mr. Harris, charming and young.

  Libby he’d called her; a beautiful name.

  There were doctor’s appointments, speech therapy sessions,

  bills to sort and be certain he paid. She bought food and the like with blank checks he had signed, filled prescriptions at the chemist’s in Glass. Her only indulgence was a book here or there, cho-

  sen from the rack near the front of the market.

  She had grown to be more than a housekeeper. She was devoted

  as a mother, a wife. It moved her each morning when he tipped

  back his head to show how he’d swallowed all of his pills. From

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  time to time he grew irritable, and when she asked what he wanted

  for dinner, or if the room was too drafty, he would wave his hand

  and dismiss her. She was stern with him in those moments, and it

  gave her heart a great thrill to say, “If you don’t tell me it will be tinned meat all week, Mr. Harris.”

  At the interview, she had scarcely remarked it when Esther said

  her checks would arrive through the post, administered by a solicitor’s office. Now she was grateful for the arrangement. She would

  have felt wretched taking money from him. Like a thief she’d have

  felt. Like a swindler, a whore.

  In December, she sent cards to several old acquaintances

  for whom she still had addresses. With one woman she’d worked

  in a paper goods shop; with another she had eaten lunch once or

  twice after meetings of a talking group they’d been in. She sent a card also to the boardinghouse girls, again boasting of how well

  things had turned out. “I tend house for a wonderfully kind man,”

  she wrote. “It is hard work, but I know I am doing a good thing.

  He hasn’t anybody else, I’m afraid.” She wondered what each of

  them would think reading this and if they’d remember certain

  things about her, the trembling of her voice when she spoke, the

  way her lips turned blue in the cold; the boardinghouse ladies

  would say, “Well, I never.”

  She received only one reply, from a woman named Rae whom

  she’d known years ago at the girls’ home, near the end of her troubles. The other letters, it seemed, had been read and discarded, or perhaps had never found their way through the post. Nevertheless,

  she was pleased. She had once felt something like love for this Rae.

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  She did not open the letter at once, liking the look of it, the

  feel. Her friend’s handwriting was tilted and fine. The address

  specified Mr. Harris’s house. For a while she carried it in her hand-bag if she went out, hid it under her pillow when she returned. I only wish I had your courage, it might say. I always felt you were born a much older woman.

  Of course, privately, she had known it wouldn’t say that, exactly; when she opened it, finally, some weeks later, it was with an antici-patory sadness. “I am married,” it said. “I’ve a girl and a boy. Things have got much better with me. We were always so sad then, weren’t

  we, dear? And for what? Ah, what children we were. I pity my girl

  she has still to go through it. It’s a wonder, having a child, Louise.”

  She threw the letter away. With Rae, she had walked the bridge

  over a roadway and stood with their faces touching the fence, leaning into it, eyes closed, the roar of traffic below, imagining that they might fall any moment, open-armed like high divers or crop

  dusters, to earth. What children we were, Rae had said of that time.

  It made Louise feel there had been only falsehood between them,

  that she’d never had a friend in her life, after all.

  “What is your favorite book?” she asked Mr. Harris one

  evening as he watched a football match on TV.

  “I don’t know that I have a favorite,” he said. He paused

  thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think I have one.”

  Louise longed for him to tell her. She felt lonely all of a sudden.

  “Have you read all of these?” She indicated his shelf.

  “Oh, I doubt it,” he said. “Some of them belonged to Libby,

  and I never did read them.”

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  “She must have had a good mind for books,” Louise said,

  thinking of the woman’s face in the picture. Kind, she imagined.

  Soft with her touch. Nan had been nothing but sharp tooth and

  bone. “I haven’t really.”

  She wanted Mr. Harris to say something more—about Libby,

  or about her own unserious books—but when she looked up she

  found him engrossed in his match.

  They burned wood every night, and soon the stack

  began to dwindle beside the front door. “We can neither of us

  chop a new stack,” Louise said. She was in the kitchen, washing a

  pile of dishes that had been collecting in the sink for some days.

  Mr. Harris was in the next room; he didn’t respond. Increasingly,

  she found herself carrying on one-sided conversation like this,

  addressing Mr. Harris but speaking as though to the walls of the

  house. “I’ll have to arrange a delivery soon.”

  The next day she made a telephone call, and the day after that

  a man arrived in a truck. He was young, but Louise felt he had an

  old face: dark eyes, whiskers on the line of his jaw. She met him in front of the house. He had his hands in the pockets of a corduroy

  coat, his shoulders hunched against the cold and the wind.

  “I can help you stack the wood,” was the first thing she said.

  “I’d better not let you, Miss,” the man replied. He looked at

  the ground and then back at Louise. “Only because it’s my job.”

  Being called “Miss” made the color rise to her face. She hurried

  back into the house. From the window, standing obscured by the

  curtain, she could see him lifting logs from the bed of his truck.

  Never had she had a proper affair. There had only been a boy in a

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  youth hostel once, and that had been a furtive thing in the dark.

  Of all things, Nan could not abide sex: the filth, the stark carnality of it. At thirteen, the start of her first monthly bleeding, she’d been made to drink spoons of vinegar, lemon. You’d wonder how

  your own mother came to be born. Her knickers had been burned

  in the grate.

  She said to Mr. Harris, “He’s handsome, that man.”

  He teased: “You should go on a date.”

  Louise said nothing to that, only carried on watching the

  young man at work. She imagined herself a woman from one of

  her novels, inviting him in for coffee or tea. She would offer to

  add a splash of whiskey to his, and the
y would stand, brought

  close and warmed by the drink. In her mind, she traced the angles

  of his face with her fingertips, a boldness he did not turn away.

  When he reached for her, his hands spanned the cage of her ribs.

  She imagined him kissing her there in the kitchen, lifting her onto the counter as though she were as light as a seashell.

  When the job was finished, Louise paid the man with a check

  signed in Mr. Harris’s earnest, uneven hand. Her voice quavered

  as she offered to make a hot drink; behind her, she could hear Mr.

  Harris’s laugh.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got another job to get to,” he said, again look-

  ing at the ground when he spoke.

  At the bend in the road his white truck disappeared. She watched,

  relieved to see him depart, to think that he would never be back.

  One night after dinner, reading her book, Louise heard

  a sound like the grinding of stone.

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  Mr. Harris sat upright in his chair, twitching gently through

  the shoulders and hips. She watched him, curious, strangely

  detached: The television light made his face appear pale, but the

  cheek nearest her was lit warmly by fire. She noted that odd and

  haunting effect and the lurching, rhythmic motion of him; he

  might have been a child asleep in a car, traveling over uneven road.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Harris?” she said.

  Belatedly, panic took hold. She crawled across the carpet to

  him, trembling as she came to his side. He wasn’t shaking very

  much anymore. His eyes rolled back and forth in their sockets.

  She placed her hands on his shoulders, his wrists, gripped him.

  Slowly, the tension dissolved. He was breathing as though after

  exertion. Already, the seizure had passed.

  “All right now?” she asked.

  “I’m frightened,” he said. He blinked his watery eyes.

  Some days later something similar happened. Over breakfast

  he put his spoon back on his plate and bit down, bits of egg com-

  ing out through his teeth. This time, Louise knew at once what

  had happened. She touched his face with a cloth.

  She knew it wasn’t right to keep the episodes secret, but neither

  could she bring herself to tell anyone. Not even his daughter. It worried her heart. Secrecy was the sort of thing that caused trouble, that made people think she might have hurt Nan. At his appointment

  the following week, the doctor asked if she had noticed a change.

  She thought of the timidity that had come over him, how if she

  asked him a question, he was slow to respond, seeking the words.

  She shook her head, cast her eyes at the floor. “His appetite is

  a bit down, perhaps.”

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  After that, she sat nearer to him in the evenings, and when she

  looked out the window the glass seemed a border between worlds.

  She spoke more than ever and asked bolder questions.

  “How did your wife die?”

  “Libby?” he said.

  “Did you have another?” The idea seemed a kind of betrayal.

  “I never did.”

  “How did she die, Mr. Harris?”

  He spoke as though just roused from a dream. “Very quietly.

  She was asleep for many days before it happened.”

  “Did you love her very much?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mr. Harris said. “I never loved another woman.

  Never loved a dog, never loved a car or a boat. Never loved any-

  thing but Libby. Libby and the girl. Have you seen her picture in

  the hallway?” he asked.

  Louise had moved very close to his chair, and she rested her

  chin on the arm of it. The wrinkled skin around his eyes appeared

  terribly soft. With one forefinger she reached up to touch it.

  “Yes,” she said, taking the finger away. “I have seen it. She was

  a beautiful woman.”

  At Christmas, she bought a small tree, which she placed

  on a table in the corner of the living room. She spent afternoons

  and evenings poring over catalogs, trying to decide what she

  would buy Mr. Harris. She had saved a good deal of money, but

  she did not yet have the courage to give him something very dear.

  One catalog offered wood chess and backgammon boards. She

  had never learned to play either game, but she smiled imagining

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  herself sitting opposite the old man, her elbows on the table,

  studying the board as she had seen others do in parks or cafés.

  Other catalogs offered colognes and neckties, monogrammed wal-

  lets and handkerchiefs. In the end, she bought him a model sailing ship inside a glass bottle, a gift without utility but one that she liked and thought suitably dignified for him. It arrived in the post, and she placed it, in its simple brown wrapping, beneath the tree.

  At Nan’s house, gifts had not been exchanged.

  When Esther arrived, Christmas morning, Louise hardly rec-

  ognized her. It was different seeing her now, being used to her face as it was in old photos. They embraced outside on the porch, like

  sisters; their breath could be seen in the cold.

  All over Glass the air smelled of woodsmoke, of fir trees, and

  also of the dark, brooding sea.

  Inside, Esther went to her father. He behaved as though sur-

  prised she had come. Louise removed herself to the kitchen and

  set about arranging a tray: the teapot, three cups and saucers, a

  plate of the dead fly biscuits he favored. Her gift to Mr. Harris

  was already on a high shelf; he’d been pleased, almost tearful, in fact. Perhaps Esther would see and remark it. Perhaps she’d be

  chastened by Louise’s generosity.

  Their talk filtered in from the next room, halting, as though

  perhaps they had little to say. Already, it seemed Esther wanted

  to leave.

  Over tea, they talked of their daily routines. “He’s known at all

  the shops,” Louise said. “Sometimes they won’t let me pay for his

  things. It’s true, isn’t it, sir? At Star and at Herville’s. The hospital, too. He gives cheek to the nurses. You do.”

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  Later, as she left, Esther took her aside. She said, “He doesn’t

  look good.”

  Louise felt a sudden heat in her chest. “I know,” she said. “I

  should have rung.”

  “I want to avoid big changes right now. For his sake and mine.

  Do you think you can manage?”

  “Of course.”

  They were silent a moment, and then Esther added, with a

  note of apology, “It’s the house I can’t give up, you know. The

  sensible thing would be to move him, of course.”

  They were standing beside the window, just behind the sofa in

  the living room. They were near to Mr. Harris, but they knew he

  would not be able to hear them.

  “You grew up here,” Louise said.

  “I did.”

  “I grew up in a house with my nan.”

  “It’s not much of a house, actually,” Esther said. She glanced

  around it a moment. “I don’t know why I can’t give it up.”

  Louise imagined Esther alone in this room, all the furniture

  cleared out and sold.

  “I think it’s lovely. I usually keep it tidie
r than this, you know.

  I wanted to tell you that. With the holiday, it’s been difficult

  to keep up with the cleaning the way I’d like, but normally it’s

  quite tidy.”

  Esther smiled briefly, as though unable to hold the expression

  on her face.

  “I hope you’ll come more often,” Louise said. “Mr. Harris

  would like it.” She put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder,

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  removed it. “He sure loves you.” The anger she’d felt earlier faded away. She felt sorry for Esther. “And he sure loved your mother.”

  Esther reached into her purse for her cigarettes. “Oh, he loves

  her, sure,” she said. “Sure. He’s very devoted, now that she’s gone.”

  As winter began to give way, the grass on the lawn grew

  unruly and bright. Mr. Harris wet his trousers once, then again.

  Seeing him try to hide what he’d done threatened to break Louise’s heart. She helped him undress and led him into the shower, avert-ing her eyes as best she could. His body was pale white and spot-

  ted, ribs and thin muscles stark beneath skin. If only Nan could see me, she thought. He covered his face with his hands. She was very gentle about it, but still he flinched at the first touch of the washcloth.

  “Well, don’t stare at me,” he said. “What are you looking at?”

  She said nothing. His private place appeared heavy and soft,

  dampened by urine, achingly there. Seeing it, you felt the weight

  of yourself, the deep beauty and sadness of having a body.

  She reached out and put the warm cloth in his hand.

  “Wash your private place, Mr. Harris,” she said. Then, because

  she had dared herself to, she said, “It’s important you wash your

  penis as well.”

  It made her feel brave, saying that word, brave and loving

  toward him. She looked away as he lowered the cloth. There was

  holiness in the decay of the body, the dry, fragile shell of it, brittle, intact. She felt this and again thought of Nan. The lie had been

  given to something, at last. Steam rose, hot water fell on her dress.

  She wept with joy for the living and dead.

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  The days grew warmer. Louise ventured outside.

  Increasingly, she took care with the lawn, ashamed of her prior

  neglect. It seemed a violation of their privacy that anybody driving by should be able to see such a clear, simple measure of the old