“I do,” Brown said unexpectedly. “I didn’t used to but I do now. She’s got a lot of guts. I’m not saying anything against Mr. Pearson; he’s a good guy. But...” He looked sharply at Lily, defying her to interrupt. “...he’s not easy to live with. For the people who work for him, sure. But not for a wife.”
He felt intensely grateful to Brown for defending her. He wanted to shake hands with him and congratulate him on his perspicacity and have him over for a drink.
“I admit she’s improved,” Mrs. Putnam said. “The trouble is, she hasn’t got enough to do. She should have a couple of kids or some dogs.”
“Or a lover,” Brown said.
Mrs. Putnam told him he had a dirty, dirty mind and there wasn’t a moral bone in his body, and ten chances to one, he was a Communist, not a philosopher at all, just plain Communist.
In the midst of the argument that followed, Steve got up and went outside.
The air was still, the noon sun hot on his face. He looked up at it, squinting, a little surprised to find that it was still there though he hadn’t noticed it for a long time. He hadn’t been noticing anything, the day of the week or the weather, but now everything struck him at once. It was Saturday, and the end of spring. The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.
I’ll get Martha, he thought. We’ll go for a walk in the woods and lie in the sun and I’ll pick some flowers for her hair. Trilliums or violets.
No, it’s too late for trilliums or violets.
Mushrooms, then. We can gather mushrooms and bring them home and I’ll cook them for her.
You’d both croak, buddy. You don’t know a mushroom from a toadstool.
We can lie in the sun, anyway.
If it doesn’t rain.
I’ll protect her from the rain. I’ll give her my coat and my shirt, and I’ll...
Give her your pants, too.
He began to move slowly toward the garage. It was no use, no use trying to pretend they were an ordinary couple in love, or that they could do ordinary things like lie in the sun. The sun had nothing to do with them. Their lying was done at night. They met like thieves in the dark, they talked in whispers like murderers, they fled before the dawn like ghosts.
The smell of lilacs soured, the budding trees were an insult. Deliberately, with every step he took, he dug his heels into the ground, leaving behind him the scars of his feet, a trail of bruised grass.
As soon as she came that night, he told her about the trilliums, laughing to show her how funny it was.
“Trilliums,” he said. “Can you beat it?”
She put her head against his shoulder so that every time she blinked, her eyelashes brushed his neck like feathers.
“I like flowers,” she said seriously. “The woods, too.”
“I don’t think you have a sense of humor, my darling.”
“I haven’t.” He felt her frown against his neck. “I would like to have. Charles always thought I was funny when I didn’t think I was.”
“Good old Charles. I haven’t thought of him for all of three minutes, so you have to bring him up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right.” He waved a greeting into the air. “Why, hello, Charley! Come on in. Glad to have you with us. Sit right here on my lap.”
She raised her head so she could look into his face.
“Now was that funny?” she asked. “I mean it. Was it?”
“Moderately.”
“Oh.”
“Not my best effort, though. I do better in blackface.”
“You sound very bitter tonight,” she said. “Is anything the matter?”
“What a question!”
“I’d like to know. I thought you were... I want you to be as happy as I am.”
“Are you happy?”
“Very.”
“You don’t mind being furtive, skulking around in the dark to meet me?”
“I’m not furtive,” she said clearly. “I don’t feel that way.”
“What excuses do you give your mother or Laura for going out every night?”
“None. I just walk out.”
“Leave them wondering.”
“If they want to wonder, I can’t stop them.”
“You can’t stop Brown, either.”
She smiled slightly. “Oh, I haven’t tried to fool Brown. I knew I couldn’t. He may write and tell Charles, of course, but I don’t think he will. I think in his queer way Brown wants everybody to be quite happy, even me.”
“The legal profession has a fancy name for what we’re doing — adultery. You are an adulterer, my darling. A happy adulterer.”
She didn’t smile. “That’s right.”
“You don’t give a damn what people think.”
“No.”
“And a couple of weeks ago you were so respectable, you even wore a hat and gloves when you took a bath. The change makes sense, I suppose, but how or why...”
“I feel more respectable now,” she said. “I have you back.”
“And I’ve made an honest woman of you, I suppose?”
“Perhaps you have. That’s how I feel, anyhow.”
That’s how she looked, too. Proud and contented, as if she’d be quite willing to go on like this forever.
Well, I’m not, he thought, I won’t.
“Brown isn’t going to tell Charles,” he said. “You are.”
She was silent.
“You intended to tell him, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“I have.” He tried to sound patient, but there was a rough edge to his voice. “I called you my wife. Do you think I’ve said that to every woman I’ve crawled into bed with the last five years?”
“How many women?” she asked. “Many?”
“Enough.”
“Ten?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
“Twenty? Surely not twenty?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
She averted her head. “I can’t tell Charles because I don’t know where he is.”
“I’ll find him for you. I’ll even escort you there.”
“No. No, I’ll find him. It’s just that — I don’t know what to say.”
“Ask him for a divorce. If he wants to know why, tell him that, too.” Her shoulders were trembling and he tightened his arm around her. “You’re not scared, are you?”
“No.”
“If you are, I’ll come with you. I’ll be exhibit A.”
“I couldn’t stand that,” she said. “I really couldn’t. You’re so much — sturdier than Charles.”
He didn’t ask her what she meant. He had a feeling that he’d be better off if he didn’t know.
Chapter 16
She had a confused, endless dream that night, in which she watched a sea monster cruise along the lake shore, holding its head out of the water with contemptuous dignity. It was dusk and she’d broken her glasses; she had to wait and wait until it got close enough for her to see. It was a shock but a relief, too, to see that the monster wore Charles’s head.
“It’s only Charles!” she cried to the people on the shore, with their half-strange, half-familiar faces.
It was getting dark and they all vanished suddenly, burying themselves in the sand and crouching behind rocks.
“Charles, stop a minute! Listen to me! I want a divorce!”
Grey and ponderous as a battleship, the monster moved away into the black water.
She went home. She stepped on some of the people hiding under the sand. She apologized profusely, but they never let on they were there.
Her alarm rang at eight.
She rose hastily, impelled by a sense of urgency whose cause she didn’t recognize. It was as if her muscles knew in advance what her mind would remember later, that there was something difficult to be done and they must be prepared.