“How can I ever judge …” I began to protest.
“How, indeed?” And he threw up his hands in the air, and declared, “But I can’t give it up. You see I can’t capitulate still another time. No, no argument,” he mumbled, “you’ve got to come down for you’re the best observer possible, and that’s an end for now. What will I do?”
For the first time in over an hour, he ceased pacing back and forth long enough to drop into a chair, and there he stared at me as though to assess for still another time whether I could help him, or if this, without the trace of a hope for alleviation, were indeed desperation alley.
TWENTY-SIX
SO I went down the next afternoon and suffered an eventless hour of what Engels once called “that state of leaden boredom known as domestic bliss.” Guinevere sat in an armchair, a miscellany of sewing occupying her hands, while a comfortable distance away McLeod was installed in another seat with Monina upon his lap. One of them would say a word, the answer would come, and conversation would die. I, who might have been the casual Sunday visitor, perched on the sofa and looked first at one and then the other.
“It’s a long time,” Guinevere murmured at the end of a ten-minute silence, and with more than a glance in my direction, “since we been here like this.”
McLeod nodded. Monina was in the process of climbing over him, and both hands enmeshed in his black hair, scrambled her feet over his stomach. “Yes,” he said finally, “it has been a long time.” In what must have been a reaction from the night before, he sat lifelessly in his chair, depression heavy upon him. Yet, apparently, he had decided to begin. “I wonder,” he added casually, “if you find this pleasant?”
“It’s all right,” she said flatly.
Perhaps it was my presence, perhaps even the sunlight which entered through the basement window and set its rectangle upon the carpet, but in any case, no doubt despite himself, he must treat her as a stranger, and all the boredom, all the restive desire each must have possessed to be somewhere else, could hardly be contained. The result, irritating to her and pointless for himself, was a long discursion.
“I’ve spent the better part of my life avoiding just such moments as these,” he said formally, “and I must admit that in the past the sight of a house in the suburb of some city or other was enough to depress me with that damn afternoon sunlight and the shingles in kitsch and all the bloody papamamas with their brat in the baby carriage. To anyone who attempts to change the world, that’s the specter. Subjectively, there’s always the fear: that’s where I end up. And objectively it’s even worse, for you know that the end product of your labors, if you are successful, is that the multi-millions in misery will graduate only to that, and the brotherhood of man is a world of stinking baby carriages. It’s the paradox of the revolutionary who seeks to create a world in which he would find it intolerable to live.”
Guinevere yawned.
One of Monina’s feet was prodding his ribs, and he caught it with his hand and boosted her upon his shoulder. “You might say the human function of socialism” —he was now talking to me— “is to raise mankind to a higher level of suffering, for given the hypothesis that man has certain tragic contradictions, the alternative is between a hungry belly and a hungry mind, but fulfillment there is never.”
“You’re off again, huh?” Guinevere commented.
“No.” He brought himself up short. “I was disgressing, that’s true. All I wanted to say is that I’m turning mellow, for with all the shortcomings I’ve enumerated, this kind of afternoon, given my objections, no longer stirs me into anger. I might say that I can even enjoy it for a short period.” His face, however, would hardly agree. His long features had grown longer still, and his mouth puckered about a quinine tongue.
Her needle whipped through the cloth, into the fabric and with a quick pull out again. She might have been drawing a noose. “I never can understand a word of his,” she muttered.
“Well, maybe you can understand if I say that it’s been my fault and not yours.”
Nothing could have awakened her more. “Why do you say that?” Her eyes came to meet mine. A quick look, very much ill at ease, and then she was at her sewing again.
“I’m willing to state, Beverly, that I have given you neither the attention, the interest, nor the affection your nature demands, but I intend to make all attempts to alter my conduct.”
She stared at him, then at me, then at him again. And when she spoke she was angry. “I swear you can work out anything as if it’s a cross-word puzzle. But just tell me this. Why did you pick a time for your New Year’s resolutions when Lovett is around?”
Monina had clambered down to the floor and was playing a game with McLeod’s shoe. “Pooey, pooey, pooey,” she said aloud and giggled.
“Why do I talk with Lovett here? Yes, that’s a question, isn’t it? And there’s probably more answer than one.” In the stiffness and constraint of his speech—excessive even for McLeod—was the hint of much else. He conducted himself more like the high priest than the rejuvenated lover, and, the world lost, could only perform the ritual. “I wonder, Beverly, if you can remember when we first married, if you can recall any of the emotions you felt at the time?”
She sat with her needle poised in the air, nose pointed before her with the attention of an animal who has caught the scent of something wholly unexpected, and in the separation, be it only seconds of this first apperception and the subsequent discovery for good or for ill, has wholly and resolutely set herself upon guard. Her arms held out, her back no longer touching the chair, she stared at him. And her little mouth, revealed by its lack of lipstick, parted unhappily. “Maybe I remember,” she said.
“You do, probably, or could if you made the effort, but I’ve discouraged such things. So perhaps it’s best for me to tell you. Because, you see, when we married you were ready to share yourself with somebody. It was a short period, but the only period in your life, I think, when you could have been in love. And I betrayed that potentiality. You needed a man who would give you a great deal, and I gave you very little.”
“Yes,” she said. The confession from him evoking only bitterness in her, she returned sullenly, “You had your chance.”
“I know, but I want another.”
“Another?” She snorted. “Boy, you’re a character.”
“You’ve got cause to be resentful,” he said, “but the point is you still need all the emotional contact I failed to provide. There were moments, if you look back, Beverly, when you were not unhappy with me. For instance, I might mention the trip we took in the old car I bought in the first year of our marriage. Do you remember that?”
He had touched some depth in her. By the slight shifting of her seat, in the attitude of self-protection with which she hugged her arms to her bosom, I could sense the center of discord in herself. “Lots of men gave me just as much,” she declared. “It’s the woman makes the man anyway.”
As though he sensed by her opposition that she was hungry for his plea, he worried the exposition even further. “I understand you, Beverly, and you know that’s worth something”—echoes of the conversation I had had with him once about Mr. Guinevere. “If you’re willing to make the attempt, we can try all over again.”
He wiped his glasses with a handkerchief and set them up on the thin bony ridge of his nose, but in the interval they had been removed the dark shrunken sockets of his eyes blinked painfully. They were both silent, both considering what trying-all-over-again would mean, and the thought two-faceted for each of them balanced precariously between the antipathetic past and the moot future.
“And what’ll we do?” she asked at last.
“We’ll have to go away. That’s the first thing.”
“How’ll we live?”
“Modestly. Modestly. We’ll be more or less in hiding, you understand. It’ll hardly be pleasant.” He would reveal it all. “I’ve considered going away myself, but to be underground … I’m more than weary, you know,
” he said softly. “And then perhaps we can’t get away. Surveillance is hard to determine.” In the act of arguing the proposition he twisted upon himself and found it intolerable.
“You mean going on like it is now?”
He nodded. “Yes. Except, you see, I would be a different husband to you.”
“We’ll live in a place like this?”
“Maybe less.”
On into the years ahead, the two of them sitting in just such a room, afternoon sunlight on the floor, the child playing between them and the minutes ticking past.
“I love you, Beverly,” he declared.
“There’s a way,” she said quietly.
“Yes?”
“The thingamajig. I was wondering if it was what they call convertible into cash.” She insinuated this delicately, her fingers not missing a pass of the needle.
If this had been what he was ready to broach, the sound of it coming from her made the prospect intolerable. “Sell it?” he said slowly.
She nodded. “I’m only asking.” Her tone was almost gentle. “You hinted that you might.”
“Why don’t we try to get away?” he said abruptly. “On the sly. We can manage it, and not give it up at all. You see . .” His face was rigid. “I’ve tried to give it up. I don’t think I can. Wouldn’t you go away with me if I still kept it?” Enthusiasm was betrayed for just an instant. “I’ve realized something. You loved me when we married, and I could love you now. I would devote the energy I possess, for you and for the child. Do you understand? You could blossom in the admiration I would furnish, and there’s a part of you never given up the idea.” So he would woo her.
Only after the gate was closed. “You got a crust,” she shrieked suddenly. “Anybody else offers me … offers me lots of things,” she finished lamely, “and you won’t give me anything, not even when you can.”
He shook his head. “Listen, Beverly, I know you well enough to say you’re miserable and tormented with your two companions. Each of them represents an existence filled with uncertainty and with terror. Neither will provide anything for you.”
“Oh, shut up,” she cried.
They were silent, the charge gathering between them so dark and ugly that Monina looked up from where she played and whimpered almost without sound.
“Listen,” Guinevere said, “listen, you!”
“No, you listen to me.”
“I wish you were dead!” Guinevere shouted suddenly.
A pause. Guinevere gathered the sewing in her hand, wadding it between her fingers. I would not have been surprised if she had thrown it at him and the basket to follow.
“Tell me,” she asked sweetly.
“Yes?”
“Do you love me?”
He nodded. “Yes, I do, Beverly.”
Her mouth twisted. “I’m your bloody salvation, that’s all.”
McLeocd’s face became pale. “Not true,” he murmured.
“I’m your bloody salvation,” she repeated, “and you don’t even want that. You want the ship to go down.”
“Do I?” he asked aloud, and half rose in his seat. “I don’t know. It’s possible. Maybe I do,” he muttered.
Nothing could please her now, no admission, no concession. She must drive him out of the room and out of her sight. “It’s just like you to come smelling around after everything’s been decided. Why don’t you find out what’s going on?” Her face swelled from rage. “Ask your friend here the sights he’s seen. He could tell you a thing or two.”
“I don’t want to hear about your dances. How I know they’re ridiculous.”
“… about Leroy and me, but he won’t tell you, no, sir, because he’d like to get his finger in the jam too. All of you would. All you men. You’d just like to grab in me and grab in me.” She was almost weeping. “Why don’t you get out of here?”
McLeod was on his feet now. “What is she talking about?” he asked me.
“I think it’s best not to go into it,” I murmured.
“Get out of here,” Guinevere screamed at him.
He lit a cigarette and sighed once remotely. I could almost have sworn he looked relieved. “Perhaps it’s best I take a walk.”
“Oh, get the hell out.”
When the door closed behind him, Guinevere sat back in her chair, but her body was tense. “And you can get out too,” she said to me.
“All right.”
“You just want to torment me, and make me feel like. .” Imagery failed her. “Like two cents.”
“Do you care what happens to him?” I asked.
It was an unpleasant question. Why must something happen? she might have screamed. “He doesn’t care about me,” she said in an excited voice. “He says he loves me. Did he act like a man in love? Did he say he liked me? You were here. Did he give me a single compliment?” She was close to weeping. “That’s the way he’s always loved me. He loves me by telling me what my faults are, and I used to think he was a fine guy once.” She held her hands to her head. “What am I in, anyway? What’s going to become of us all? Oh, I’m so tired I could bust.”
Monina was pounding the floor with her fists. In a grief almost incommunicable she began to wail.
“Keep quiet,” Guinevere cried at her.
Monina hate you, hate you, hate you,” the child sobbed.
Although she shouted, Guinevere’s voice was not without its plea. “He’s okay, though, he’s okay, isn’t he?” and the sarcasm failed.
“Monina hate him too.” The child wept only more.
“Oh, shut up,” Guinevere shouted, “or I’ll get the strap.” She seemed about ready to join the child on the floor. “Oh, murder mia, shut up, will you, Monina?”
In answer, Monina continued to pound her fists.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THIS was the tableau which greeted Lannie. I stood in the corner virtually concealed by the heavy shadow of the stuffed armchair, while in the center of the carpet, her head illumined by the indifferent light which sifted tnrough the basement windows, Monina sat weeping, her agitation translated by now into a thoroughgoing tantrum. And Guinevere towered above her, helpless as the child sobbed.
Small wonder Lannie did not see me. She must have noticed Monina, but without pause she crossed the room, threw her arms about Guinevere, and kissed her upon the mouth. For one instant Guinevere shuddered in the shock of awakening from a nightmare to see a stranger by the bed. But in the next moment all had been restored again, the body was familiar, and Guinevere returned the embrace. They met like lovers who tryst in the dark, consumed with impatience, their hearts beating, all fear of discovery melting at the touch.
“I thought he’d never leave,” Lannie whispered. “It was terrible. He passed me on the street and he smiled. He knows!”
To draw attention to myself, I tried to clear my throat. But as if this were wholly inadequate, I gave vent instead to a furious spasm of coughing. Each of them started from the embrace. Lannie stood rigidly, her eyes fastened upon me. “Ohh,” she breathed. “Ohhh, why did you have to be here?”
Guinevere pulled her dressing gown over her halter, and the motion completed, looked at me with a silly expression on her face. She began to snicker. “I forgot you were coming,” she blurted to Lannie, bewildered, I am certain, that she had been rendered so unaware. “Oh, brother,” she offered in diminutive. Yet she could hardly conceal her delight. If the first diversion could not have come at a better moment, the second relieved her entirely. “Brother,” she repeated, and not without gusto.
Hands against her forehead, Lannie dropped into a chair.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Despite myself, I began to laugh, and if the coughing had not exhausted me, the laughter would finish me indeed. I roared at Lannie as the duplicate of myself, and at Guinevere who must run all her trains on the same track and cannot remember if the freight has passed and the express is coming. I roared at McLeod who dropped all his bets on a crooked wheel. I roared at ingenuity w
hich filled the same hole necessity has dug, and thought of Lannie who waited outside for hours. And in seeing the two women together I saw myself alone with each of them, and laughed even more.
Lannie was grasping the arms of her chair. “Don’t look like that,” she snapped at Guinevere, whose mouth was open at my reaction. The rebuke effective, Lannie added furiously, “Pay no attention to him. He’s a fool.”
Guinevere’s eyes came up to mine, flinched, and moved away. “Oh, you characters will drive me nuts,” she shouted.
Lannie lit a cigarette, her quivering fingers negotiating the contact between the match and the tip with obvious difficulty. “You must never say that,” she told Guinevere; “you must never try to catch the favor of anyone who is not your equal, for there is no shame equal to that.”
“I don’t know. I’m no different from anybody else,” Guinevere proclaimed. But the smugness with which normally she would have mastered the statement was not quite successful. If she had used this a score of times with that part of her equipment which acted the housewife and had noted it to be a convenient rest in any conversation—yes, we are all alike, we are not fools nor radicals nor thieves nor clowns—where one could nod his head and mutual self-esteem could lap about this bond, she could employ it no longer with complete satisfaction. For the speech Lannie must have made many times had caught her at last in its attractions. She would be a thief or a clown or a radical or a fool and flourish in the novelty. “I’m no different from anybody else,” she said, but offered it as an obvious gambit, panting to be contradicted.
And Lannie satisfied her. “Why must you be so silly? You are different. There is no one else like you, and you are beautiful.” I might not have been there for all the attention paid me. “To think of you years ago,” she said in her husky voice, “and how everyone passed through you and over you, and if you became drunk enough you could think you loved them, but it was never true. You were too beautiful, and what did they know of you, what does a boot know of the ground it soils? You gave yourself to them, and yet you were always free, for you wanted more than they did, you agreed to them and followed their ways, but you were miserable because that could never be for you. How could you love them when it was only yourself that you loved, and you were so right in that because we are born to love ourselves and that is the secret of everything. All your life you searched for a mirror to find your beauty, to see how your skin glows and your body swells in rapture and the hymn that is in you may be sung to yourself.” Caressing, delicate, her voice must seek to create a spell. “But no one could give you even a tarnished dirty picture of yourself, for how may a boot reflect beauty? And how could they see that you were alive and that your face could shine and there was color in you and such a sweet song, when they didn’t want that, they wanted to swill and grind you into the dirt and tromple tromple. What an island you must have lived in, what a cry there is in you for deliverance. And that is why you love me, for I would be a mirror to you, and we escape only when we follow our mirror and let it lead us out of the forest. I can let you see your beauty, and so you will love me for I adore you and unlike the others want nothing but to lie in your arms, the mirror.”
Barbary Shore Page 24