Deserted, he was like an old man who sees the last of the guests to the door and returns, stretching, and yawning, to an empty room. Now I am alone again, he says. Finally. We can get down to what I have been waiting to do.
What is it I have been waiting to do?
7. Spring and Summer, 1971: Mary
First it was like a picnic. I mean that I planned it with the same kind of bottled-up, excited energy. I lay awake all Thursday night making mental lists of what I would need for the children — just the essentials. We were finally getting down to the essentials again. I calculated the earliest time I could telephone Brian in the morning, and I decided on seven. Which was too early, as it turned out. I have forgotten the pattern of life without children. Brian answered sounding hoarse and sleepy, and he didn’t seem to be thinking well. I said, “Brian, do you still have that house by the river?”
“Who is this?” he asked.
“It’s Mary Pauling.”
“Do I what?”
“Do you still have that house by the river. Where your boat is moored.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“Would it be all right if the children and I went out there for a few days?”
“Out—?”
“I wouldn’t ask you this but you did say you never use it yourself. Didn’t you?”
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You want to take the children there?”
“That’s right.”
“You and the children but not Jeremy?”
“That’s right.”
“But this is not a vacation house.”
“No, I know that.”
“It doesn’t even have hot water. And it’s filthy.”
“Yes, we’ve been there once, remember?”
“Mary,” Brian said. “Are you — I mean, is this — you’re not leaving him or anything.”
“Oh,” I said, “you know Jeremy, he’s just so caught up in his work right now and I thought it would help if we got out of his hair for a while.”
Then Brian said, “I see. Well, of course. You can use it as long as you like.”
I could tell that he was still puzzled. But how else could I have explained it? “Actually, Jeremy forgot to marry me, Brian, and of course I could have reminded him but that would have been the third reminder on top of my proposing in the first place, and what kind of wedding is that?”
By then I was packed. I had done that at dawn, while waiting for it to be time to call Brian. I tiptoed into the children’s rooms as they slept and I felt for their things in the dark. All night I had been looking forward to it — I do like getting organized to go someplace — but it turned out not to be what I had expected. For one thing, the bare essentials for six children can fill a trunk in no time. You don’t get the same feeling of purity as when you run away with one small child and her favorite doll. Clothes, vitamins, toothbrushes, baby aspirin, diapers, Edward’s potty chair, Pippi’s antihistamine, seven pairs of plastic pants … Also, I felt so sad. Hadn’t I once sworn never to leave anyone ever again? Especially not Jeremy. Oh, never Jeremy.
I didn’t tell the children until Miss Vinton had had her breakfast and left for work. I knew they would have passed it on to her; they can’t keep secrets. Miss Vinton took an endless time buckling her mackintosh, smoothing the lapels down, checking on a little stain near the hem. I thought I was going to start screaming and shaking her, but instead I went on smiling. I looked steadily downward so she wouldn’t notice any difference in my face. “Have a good day, Miss Vinton,” I said. Then just as I was closing the front door after her I saw how straight she held her back, that rigid board of a spine marching off to deal with the world, those enormous Mary Janes flapping along, and I wished I had told her after all and given her a hug for goodbye.
Mr. Somerset sometimes slept till noon and Olivia even longer. She had a job now at a sort of leather shop. I never had figured out her hours, but I was fairly sure that she would sleep through our going. (The night before, making supper, setting out a tray for Jeremy, I started crying right in front of her. “Oh,” I said, “I just can’t go on with these everlasting trays of his,” so she took over. She gave him part of her casserole — something organic, I believe. Later I was so ashamed. Haven’t I been trying all this time to instill some sort of stability in her? This morning I didn’t want to say anything to her at all. I couldn’t face her. I wouldn’t know how to explain.) I stood at the foot of the stairs for a moment, listening for any sounds from her room or Mr. Somerset’s. Then I said, “Children?” They were still dawdling over breakfast. They thought they were going to school that day. I went out to the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe. “Guess what, children,” I said. “We’re taking a little trip.”
They wanted to know where — all but Darcy. Darcy just got very still. She was feeding Rachel her Pablum, and she stopped the spoon in mid-air and didn’t even notice when Rachel started shouting and grabbing for it.
“We’re going to spend a few days at Mr. O’Donnell’s cabin near the boatyard,” I said. “Remember last summer, when he took you all to see his boat? We’ll leave after breakfast; Mr. O’Donnell has kindly offered to drive us there.”
“Something’s gone wrong,” Darcy said.
“Of course not, honey.”
“But it’s a school day. I have a math test.”
“You can always make it up.”
“It’s going to count for half my grade.”
“You can make it up, Darcy.”
“Are we leaving Jeremy or something?”
Well, of course she would guess that. I suppose she remembers leaving Guy, although she has never said so or asked me a single thing about it. I said, “No, Darcy, don’t be silly. We’re giving him a little peace and quiet, is all.” Then I said, “Mr. O’Donnell is just providing the transportation.”
Which I might not have needed to add, but I couldn’t be sure. You never can tell what is going through that head of hers.
At nine o’clock Brian was supposed to be picking us up. (There was a city bus, but it didn’t go the entire way and I was just as glad we weren’t relying on it.) I gave each child a coat and a load to carry. “Hurry now,” I said, “out to the vestibule. Not outdoors, just in the vestibule.” I didn’t want Jeremy to see us leaving. I was afraid that one of the children would suddenly decide to run up and kiss him goodbye, but nobody thought of it. Then too he might come down on his own. Why hadn’t I taken him breakfast, so that he would have no reason to leave his studio? The fact is that if he did come, if he said a single word to keep me with him, I would gladly stay forever. I didn’t want to go. Yet I kept feeling this pressure to get out of the house before he discovered it. I kept saying, “Move, Edward, we’re in a hurry,” and when Hannah wanted to run upstairs for her bear I said, “No! Stay down!” I scared her. She went immediately to the vestibule and stood sucking her thumb and staring up at me. I was like a burglar trying to escape without a sign, leaving behind me those gleaming countertops washed clean of every fingerprint. I made them all whisper. “Olivia’s asleep, hush!” I said, and they stared. Hush for Olivia? She could sleep through nuclear warfare. We stood packed solid in that little cube of a vestibule, steaming up the front windows and keeping utterly silent. Yet if Jeremy would only come! If he would come and say, “What’s going on, Mary?” and blink at me and put out one of his warm, pale hands to touch mine! Then I would herd everyone back in and lock all the doors and draw all the curtains, and Brian could wait outside our house forever.