“No. No, it’ll get wet.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“All right then.”
She draped her coat over his shoulders. It reminded her of the times she had covered him when he’d gone to sleep naked on her bed, and she never knew whether she did it to hide him from her sight or to keep him warm.
They started to walk, rather solemnly in step, back to the cottage.
“You look wonderful, Martha,” he said. “What have you been doing?”
Chapter 17
When he was dressed again, they sat side by side on the porch, talking.
“Why did you come?” he said. “Because you wanted to see me?”
“Why, of course. But...”
“I’m fine. Don’t I look fine?” He smiled at her, his lips, still blue with the cold.
She nodded. He didn’t look fine at all, but he seemed a great deal stronger than he had been.
“I eat a lot,” he said. “Raw things. You know, like carrots.”
“Forbes told me.”
“Forbes thinks it’s silly, even though it saves him a lot of work cooking.”
As if in response to his name, Forbes came silently out of the house carrying a steamer rug.
Charles waved him away. “Stop treating me like an old man. I don’t need a rug over my knees.”
Forbes snorted, very faintly, and went inside again.
“Would you like a cigarette or anything, Martha?”
“No, thanks.”
“Will you stay for lunch then?”
“I’d like to, but I’ve got a cab waiting.”
“Let it wait, won’t you? I have so many things to say to you. I can’t even get started.”
“I have something very important to discuss with you, too.”
“Then you’ll have to stay. What I’m going to say may require two hours, perhaps the whole rest of my life. Look, Martha.” From the inside breast pocket of his jacket he brought out a battered envelope with his own name written across the front. “Remember this?”
“Yes.”
“I carry it around with me all the time. It’s the only letter you ever wrote me.”
“Throw it away,” she said sharply.
He stared at her. “Why?”
“Because it’s a silly letter.”
“Extremely silly. That’s why it’s so important. Do you remember what you wrote?”
“Vaguely.”
“You told me you were afraid and you wanted me to come back home.”
She wet her lips. “Did I?”
“Afraid. Can you imagine? It bowled me over because I never dreamed you were capable of fear. I thought you were a rather hard woman.”
“I am. Don’t let a letter change your mind.”
“It didn’t. It merely made me start wondering whether I hadn’t been the big failure in our marriage. You had so many good qualities, but I never seemed to be able to bring them out. I knew you didn’t love me, of course, and I used to get crazy jealous wondering if you’d ever loved anyone else, and what his name was and how he looked.”
He leaned back in the chair, smiling.
“Crazy jealous,” he said. “Wasn’t I a fool?”
Her hand moved to her throat as if to loosen the invisible chains that were growing around her again, choking off the words she would have said.
“But I’ve changed, Martha. I know how ridiculous it is to get up suddenly and announce you’ve changed, but I have. I’ll prove it to you. You will let me, won’t you? You want me to come home, don’t you, as you said in the letter?”
She rose violently. The chair teetered, the floor vibrated.
“I’d better go and tell the cab driver to have lunch in the village,” she said.
“But you didn’t answer me. You do want me to come home... Don’t you?”
“Of course,” she said in a flat, thin voice. “Of course I do.”
“When? Soon?”
“Any time.”
“You’re not just saying that because you feel sorry for me, or anything? I know you’ll tell me the truth, and you’re always so honest.”
“Stop dreaming,” she said. “Stop making me up out of your imagination. I’m not honest. I doubt if any woman is.”
Her words didn’t disturb him, he was beyond their reach, up in the clouds again. Later, in an hour, a week, a year, he would fall hard and noisily down to earth, and the dreams he carried in his pockets would explode like grenades. She was incapable of softening the fall for him, or even trying, because she was so contemptuous of the original ascent.
“Lunch,” said Forbes from the doorway, “is ready.”
Charles got up, eager and excited. “Come on, Martha.” He took her arm. “It’s like old times, isn’t it, Forbes, having Mrs. Pearson here? Just like old times.”
Forbes’s satiric little eyes rested briefly on her face. There was dislike in them, but understanding, too, as if he realized quite as well as she did that Charles was up in the stratosphere again, detached completely from reality. “Old times” had become jolly evenings, sweet with love and gay with music. He had forgotten they were dull and interminable nights, shared with a woman who wanted to see him dead.
“Yes, you have changed, Charles,” she said with a grim little laugh. “You’ve no idea how much. Do you remember the last time I saw you?”
He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “Yes. I was a brute.”
“No, no, you weren’t. Considering how you felt about me, you acted perfectly natural. But we’ve had so many ugly scenes.” She repeated the word, “Ugly.”
“I know. We won’t have any more.”
“Why not?”
“I have more control now.”
“Oh, dear.” She laughed again, with an echo of hysteria. “You really are hopeless, Charles. Remember the day I bought you the tie?”
“No.”
“You do, I can tell by your face. You’re such a bad liar. Do you want to know something about that tie?”
He moved uneasily. “No. I...”
“I didn’t pay a dollar for it, I paid eighty-nine cents! It was on sale!” How hilariously funny it was, and how uncomfortable he looked. In a minute he would say it wasn’t the price that mattered, it was the thought.
“It isn’t how much a thing costs that matters...”
“Oh, dear!” She couldn’t stand it, he was too funny, everything was. She brushed the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “It’s the thought,” she gasped.
“Is anything the matter, Martha? Do you want some brandy?”
“And I don’t even know whether there was any thought. Isn’t that insane?”
“Here’s a handkerchief, darling. I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to upset you.”
“And the things you called me that day. You said I was sly, stupid. Maybe I am.” She had her face behind the handkerchief. It was a refuge to her from Charles’s bewildered eyes and Forbes’s listening ears. Within this world of damp linen, she could laugh or cry as much as she liked, and when she was through, she could squeeze it into a ball and toss it away.
“So much ugliness,” she said. “Ugly names, ugly thoughts.”
“Don’t keep saying that word. It’s going to be different from now on. Look at me, Martha. Please look at me.”
“Oh, leave me alone.”
“I love you, Martha. I promise you I’ll make you happy if you give me a chance. I won’t call you any more nasty names. If you irritate me sometimes, I won’t say anything, I’ll just go out for a walk around the block or something.” He added, hopefully, “Maybe you could do the same thing?”
She lowered the handkerchief and stared at him. “We’re going to be doing an awful lot of walking.”
She saw the two of them walking simultaneously around the block, Charles in one direction, herself in another, passing each other every five minutes but not saying a word because they both happened to be irritated. Eventually, perhaps, their system would be taken up by other people, and at all hours of the day and night the sidewalks would be jammed with husbands and wives walking their heads off.