Ralph felt a letdown, an embarrassment, as if he were on a stage and something had gone badly wrong. He folded the shutters back, so Ed Ralston wouldn’t possibly see his blotch, but of course Ed would have his nose bent over some task of his own now, which he would complete perfectly. Absurd to feel like this, Ralph told himself, and deliberately smiled, though no one saw the smile. Ed Ralston would not have left an unpainted spot, or his wife would have noticed it in the course of Ed’s painting, and called his attention to it.
Jane prepared lunch. She liked cooking for him more than for her husband, she said, because Ralph’s taste was more catholic. Her husband was allergic to oysters, for instance, and disliked liver. That day, Jane made a delicious dish of fried shrimp with her own mayonnaise and tomato paste dressing, and Ralph had a bottle of cool white wine to accompany it. Usually after lunch he and Jane went to bed for an hour or so. After lunch and early morning, those were the times they both preferred.
Then Jane said during lunch: “So silly of you, that little unfinished spot on the shutters!” She laughed gaily again, as she bit into the last shrimp. “I bet old Ralston wouldn’t’ve missed it! What’s he up to today?—Remember the time he unplugged the kitchen sink with that electric gadget?” Jane shrieked with mirth at the memory.
Ralph remembered. Well, he hadn’t a Roto-Rooter among his tools, and most people who were not professional plumbers didn’t have one, in Ralph’s opinion. “He’s probably a health faddist, too,” Ralph said. “Can’t imagine him smoking or drinking a beer. Marches around with his back straight as if he’s on parade somewhere. So does his wife.”
Jane giggled, in a good mood, and lit a cigarette. ‘I have to admit their place looks nice though—from the outside.”
She’d never been in, though, and Ralph had. You could eat off the floor, as the saying went, but the furniture was not his style or Jane’s, Ralph was sure. The Ralstons had an ugly, modern glass-top coffee table, and machine-made varnished furniture of rustic design or intention, suitable for the country, Ralph supposed the Ralstons thought. Grace Ralston had shown him with pride the brown and white tiles her husband had laid on the kitchen floor, and the cabinets with revolving corner sections which her husband had not made but had bought and sawed to measure and installed. Their rooms looked like sample rooms in a department store, not even a magazine out of place anywhere. Ralph had politely admired, but the Ralstons were not the kind of people he cared to cultivate, and he was sure Jane would feel the same way if she saw the inside of their house.
That afternoon, Ralph was not a success with Jane in bed. It was the first time in the four months they had known each other that this had happened, so Jane didn’t take it seriously, and Ralph tried not to. One failure was unimportant, normal, Ralph told himself. But he knew otherwise. Jane’s remarks comparing him with Ed Ralston had struck deep at his ego, even at his self-respect and his manliness, somehow. Ralph pictured Ed Ralston in bed, doing just the right thing with his plump, dull wife, because Ralston would never doubt, never hesitate. He probably had a technique as unvarying as the manner in which he changed the oil in his car, but at least it worked, and in this department Ralston would be labeled efficient also.
As they smoked a cigarette after their unsatisfactory lovemaking, dread thoughts swept through Ralph’s mind. They all concerned failures. He recalled the simple two shelves he had started to put up in an alcove in the kitchen (before he met Jane), a project which he had abandoned when his drill hit a water pipe and caused a small flood. This had necessitated a plumber to solder the pipe, then the replacement of a piece of wall there, followed by Ralph’s repainting of the plastered spot, which in turn had caused him to repaint the entire kitchen. Then the fixing of the towel rack in the bathroom: one end of it was still not as steady or strong as it should be, because the damned plaster didn’t hold well enough, despite the length of the screws he had put in. Nothing he did was perfect. Jane wasn’t perfect, if he thought about it, or her, because she was married, and her main allegiance was of course to her husband, whose schedule varied, and a few times she’d had to cancel a date with him, because her husband was unexpectedly due home for the weekend. Her husband Jack must be more efficient, or more highly trained, than he, Ralph realized, because he was an airline pilot. Ralph up to now had enjoyed his relationship with Jane, just because it wasn’t binding or heavy, but that afternoon it seemed second-rate, incomplete, inferior to other men’s relationships with girls, whether they were married or not. Couldn’t he do better than Jane if he tried?
Instantly, Ralph reproached himself for this thought. Jane had many good qualities, such as discretion, patience, poise. She was rather pretty, and she liked to cook. But he wasn’t top dog, or man, because Jane’s husband was. Politics and economics bored Jane, while Ralph found them constantly interesting. She wasn’t as intelligent as he could have wished a girlfriend to be, but that wasn’t it, Ralph knew. He could imagine himself quite happy with an even less intelligent girl than Jane, if he could only hold up his end of things by properly coping with the odd jobs around his house, the repairs that a house always needed. Ed Ralston even got on a ladder and straightened roof tiles! Ralph wasn’t afraid of heights, but he didn’t care to risk breaking an arm, since he had to drive, and he wasn’t sure he knew how to put right a tile that was out of place. His one achievement, he remembered with a flash of pride, had been sneaking into Jane and her husband’s apartment, with Jane, and replacing a broken element in their stereo set. If her husband had come in, Jane had intended to say that Ralph was a repairman, but her husband hadn’t come in. The replacement had been simple, but Jane had been most grateful and impressed. Could Ralston have done that? Ralph doubted it! Ralston wouldn’t have known what was the matter, even after reading a brochure and an instruction book. Yet that triumph had been so long ago, three months or more now, and so brief.
“ ‘You’re getting bored with me. Well—that happens,” Jane said the next morning, when they were lying in bed.
“No. Don’t be silly, Jane.” Smiling, Ralph got out of bed, and put on his dressing gown.
But it was the end, and they both knew it, although they didn’t mention it again that day. Jane left in her car before six in the evening, as her husband was due home before nine, and expected dinner. Ralph closed his house after Jane had gone, left a clean sink, and looked with bitter amusement at the vertical rafter or kingpin that extended from the middle of the living room floor up to the ceiling, and farther up through the top floor to the roof. Symbol of substantiality? What a laugh! The shutter discrepancy was on the inside, now that the shutters were closed, but Ralph was still aware of it as he drove off for Chicago. He thought it wisest and best if he didn’t ring Jane again, and he was pretty sure she was not going to ring him.
A gloom settled over him, so large, so many-sided, that Ralph didn’t know how to analyze it, much less get rid of it. He had no pep, no confidence. It was as if he had taken a sleeping pill, which he seldom did, though at the same time his thoughts came in nervous stabs: should he tell the office he needed a week off? They’d grant him that. But what good would it do? Should he visit a singles bar and look for a new girlfriend? With his lack of zest now, would he get one? On Wednesday of that week, he failed on a sale to a three-store chain in Chicago for a Basic-Hi product, because of his own lack of enthusiasm. The sale should have been a cinch, almost to be taken for granted, but a rival company with the same innovation in their line of gadgets won it. The day after his visit to the chain store, Ralph learned of his defeat from his boss, Ferguson. These things sometimes happened, but Ralph knew that Ferguson had noticed his depression that week.
“What’s the matter, Ralph?—Had a tough weekend?” The weekend was four days past, but Ralph had been drooping all week. “Want to take tomorrow off? Sleep it off?” Ferguson grinned, knowing Ralph wasn’t a big drinker, but perhaps thinking that Ralph had exhausted himself with a harem o
f girls last weekend at his country place.
“No, no. Thanks,” Ralph said. “I’ll shake it off. Just a mental attitude.”
“Mental attitudes are important.”
That day Ralph had lunch with Pete Barnes, another salesman of Basic-Hi, with whom Ralph was on closer terms. Ralph didn’t mention his state of mind, and didn’t need to, he supposed, because it showed. Pete also asked him what was the matter, if he’d had bad news, and Ralph told him about breaking with a girlfriend.
“Certainly not a tragedy,” Ralph said. “For one thing, she’s married. And we weren’t in love. But of course for a couple of days, it’s a letdown.” Then Ralph turned the conversation to something else, their work, but even as he listened to Pete’s news about their advertising budget, Ralph realized that it was the Ralstons’ eternal bustling and efficient presence and proximity in the country that was gnawing at him far more than the loss of Jane. The Ralstons had the strange power to make him feel like a worm.
By Thursday evening, Jane had not telephoned. She always phoned at least by Thursday in regard to the weekend. Ralph thought it not fitting for him to ring, so he didn’t. Ralph was sure the information about a breakup with a girlfriend reached Ferguson’s ears at once via Pete Barnes, because the next day Ferguson asked if Ralph could come for dinner Saturday night, and added, “A very nice girl’s coming—Frances Johnson. She’s a personnel director for a bank, I forget which. You might enjoy meeting her.”
Enjoy meeting her. What a phrase! You could meet somebody in five seconds, but enjoy it? Nevertheless, Ralph accepted graciously, and forewent his usual excursion to his country house that Saturday. His shack would only have depressed him further.
Ralph was bowled over by Frances Johnson. She was nearly as tall as he, with longish blonde hair—more blonde than Jane’s—cool, slender, and long-legged, wearing a trouser suit that might have been made by the highest of haute couture, Ralph wasn’t sure. Even the scent she wore was different and fascinating. Why was a girl like this free? And maybe she wasn’t. Unless she had just broken with somebody too.
“Ralph’s our number-one representative,” Stewart Ferguson said to Frances during dinner, and Ferguson’s wife nodded agreement.
The evening went well. When Frances was taking her leave, Ralph asked if he could see her to a taxi. She acquiesced, and he rode with her, as they had to go in the same direction. Frances’s apartment house came first, and Ralph got out and held the door for her. By then, he had a date with her on Tuesday evening for dinner. She smiled as she said, “Good night, Ralph.”
Ralph watched a gray-liveried doorman touch his cap and open a big glass door for her. Now that girl was nice, and maybe she liked him. Maybe she was important. She was a Smith graduate, plus having a degree in a business school whose name had escaped Ralph, maybe because when Ferguson had mentioned it at the table, Ralph had been looking into Frances’s eyes, and she into his.
Tuesday evening, Frances still remained cool and collected, though Ralph fancied he felt a warm glow from her. She inspired him to be gallant and masterful, and he liked that. He had gone to his country place the preceding Sunday, tidied it more than he usually troubled to, with an idea of asking Frances if she would like to come out the following Saturday and stay overnight, if she cared to.
“I have two bedrooms,” Ralph said, which was true.
Frances accepted. She knew how to drive, she said, but hadn’t a car now. Ralph said it would be a pleasure to pick her up Saturday morning around eleven, and they could drive out together.
However, Ralph spent Friday night at his country house, did the shopping early Saturday morning, then drove the twenty miles to fetch Frances. He was in good spirits, and his work had gone well that week. Maybe he was in love with Frances, in love as he had never been with Jane. Maybe he could win Frances. But he hardly dared think of that. Frances was not the type to say “yes” quickly to anybody, about anything. But for the moment, her nearness was exhilarating.
As soon as he drove with Frances into the lane that curved towards his and the Ralstons’ properties, Ralph was aware of the Ralstons’ prettier, better-tended front lawn, better-clipped roses (it was already autumn), and he at once told himself to put such negative thoughts out of his head. Was Frances going to judge him as a man, as a possible lover, or even husband, by the way he clipped three rose bushes in front of his house?
In fact, Frances paid his shack a few compliments. She said the fireplace was just the right size. She liked his kitchen—yellow-walled, everything visible on shelves or pegs, and just now very clean and neat. Ralph put another log on the fire. They had a gin and Dubonnet. Frances did not want a refill before their lunch of cold lobster. They talked a little about their work, about their childhood and parents, and the minutes swam by. Ralph had forgotten his query to himself, was Frances free? She appeared free to him, she seemed to like him, but Ralph counseled himself not to move too fast, or he might lose all. As it was, that afternoon, he felt in a happy glow of expectation, as if the wine had gone to his head, though he had drunk less than he usually did.
“You did all this yourself?” Frances asked, as she stood with her coffee in the living room. She had been looking at the pictures on his walls, the bookcases.
“This shack? Well, I furnish it. I can’t say much more for myself. I—” He broke off, thinking that all he could say was that he had painted the kitchen. He had bought his bookcases. She had seen his two bedrooms and bath, and put her overnight case in the bedroom with the single bed.
“It’s very nice and cozy,” said Frances, smiling, tossing her long hair carelessly back with one hand. But she shivered.
Ralph’s start of pleasure at her compliment at once gave way to concern about her comfort. “Just a sec, I’ll turn up the heat.” He went and did so, in the broom closet off the kitchen where the heating control was. Then he poked the fire into greater action. His next little chore was a final touch to his weather stripping, which he had nearly completed that morning. This was to drive a small wedge of wood into a gap at the upper corner of a door in his living room, a door which opened on his small back garden in summertime. Ralph had just the piece of pine board that he needed, plus a hatchet in his lean-to shed, so he said, “Back in two minutes, Frances,” and went out the front door.
He took the piece of wood, held it on end, and gave its edge a whack at its lower end. The point of the hatchet hit the cement threshold of the shed, but only a curled shaving came off the wood.
“What’re you doing?” Frances asked.
Ralph had been aware of her approach. “Nothing serious,” Ralph said with a smile, still stooped with his hatchet and wood. “I need a wedge for the door in the living room. The door never did fit at the top corner.” Ralph struck again with the hatchet. This time a larger piece came off, but so large that it was not usable for his purpose. Ralph tried to laugh. Was he going to fail again? On a primitive little job like this?
“How big do you want it?” Frances asked, stooping nimbly beside him.
“Oh—like this.” Ralph held his finger and thumb not half an inch apart. “That thick. Then tapering.”
“I see,” she said, and was ready to take the hatchet from him, but Ralph said:
“I’ll try it again.” He lifted the hatchet and tried to come down with direct aim and the right degree of strength, and once more his result was a useless shaving. He banged again more vigorously, which simply put an indentation in the side of the board.
Frances laughed a little. “Let me try. It’s fun!”
“No.” Quickly, as Frances drew her slender hand back, Ralph hacked again. He had it—but it was an oversized wedge, too long, and not worth the effort to shorten.
Frances was still smiling. “My turn.” She succeeded with the first stroke. The hatchet had not even touched the cement threshold. She held up the wedge. “Something
like this?”
“Perfect,” said Ralph, rising. A faint sweat came over him.
In the house, he stood on a chair and banged the wedge into the top crack of the door with the hammer side of the hatchet. It went in perfectly, closed the door corner flush with the jamb, and didn’t even stick out. “Makes a lot of difference with the draft,” Ralph said.
“I’m sure.” Frances was watching him. “Excellent. Good.”
A hotter sweat came over Ralph, as if his banging in the wedge had caused him to expend a great deal of muscular effort. But he knew that was not the cause of his physical warmth. He was experiencing some kind of crisis. And Frances was smiling at him, casually but steadily. She liked him. Yet he felt at that moment like a wretch, worthless and inferior. What was it? He reminded himself, in a quick flash of reality, of his job, his “position”—not bad at his age, and even enviable for a man ten years older. His self-congratulation vanished at once. It was the Ralstons. It was the wedge. If, with some tact and finesse tonight, he might persuade Frances into his bed (he had changed the sheets that morning), he knew he would not be able to make it. And was he going to impose that failure, yet another failure, upon himself?
“What’s the matter?” Frances asked. “You’re all pink in the face.”
“Blushing maybe?” Ralph tried to smile, and laid the hatchet on the floor by the front door to remind himself to take it back to the shed. When he turned to Frances again, she was still looking at him. “I’m cracking up, that’s all,” Ralph said.
“What?—Why?”
Suddenly words came bubbling out of him. “Because I can’t do anything efficiently! Really, it’s true! I’m not sure I could change a washer on the kitchen sink!—I—The fellow next door, Ed Ralston, even his wife—” Ralph gestured in the Ralstons’ direction with a wave of his arm. “—they can do everything! You’d be amazed! He’s a mason, plumber, electrician, and she’s a gardener and super housekeeper. They never stop working—and doing things efficiently. Whereas I can’t. I don’t.” Here Ralph was aware that he was or might be boring Frances, because she was looking at him with a puzzled frown, even though she smiled a little, but he plunged on. “It’s—I don’t expect you to understand. You’ve just met me. I’ve got to get out of this house or—” Or collapse under it, Ralph had been about to say.
Mermaids on the Golf Course: Stories Page 17