“Maybe,” she said, with sudden insight, “it even flavors your own.”
“True. I feel very daring. Like one of these arsenic-eaters, you know.”
“So that’s the idea — you’re building up an immunity.”
He spoke eagerly. “That’s only part of it. The whole business is experimental. You might call it silly.”
“What does Dr. MacNeil call it?”
“Nothing, yet. But he’s very interested. He comes out every other day, and we talk.”
“About what?”
“Sometimes about you, but mostly about me. He asks me questions and I answer them. It’s a little bit like the old type of psychoanalysis, perhaps, except for this difference: MacNeil believes, and I agree, that no one can face the complete truth about himself. No neurotic is cured, he merely substitutes one set of neuroses for another. Like a man who stops biting his fingernails only to start scratching his head. Or like me — when I became able to eat tomatoes, I couldn’t eat pork. Or you might look at it this way: When you start to houseclean and you sweep out one room, unless you keep the door shut, the dust will go into another room. Well, that door can’t be shut, not entirely.”
“You make it sound hopeless,” she said.
“That’s the first step. That was the initial fact I had to grasp, that, no matter how much money I spent or trouble I went to, I would still have more difficulties than the average person, just as I have more benefits. The problem was then to try and guide the difficulties, to sweep the dirt that came out of that room into neat little piles, so that I would have some idea of what was in each pile, the people, experiences, thoughts.”
She stirred, and he said instantly, “If I’m boring you, I’ll stop. I have no right to inflict all this on you.”
“I suppose I’m in one of the piles of dirt.”
“I think so.”
“Do I have one all to myself, or do I have to share it with someone?”
“I am boring you,” Charles said, with an attempt at a smile. “It was foolish of me to try to explain something I don’t understand very well myself.”
“Does MacNeil?”
“No. I told you we were experimenting. He believes that every one of these bouts of allergy poisoning was a form of suicide, that I wanted to die.”
“And did you?”
“I’m beginning to think so, yes. They always occurred when I was having some difficulty, mostly with you.”
“You were having them before you even knew me.” She turned and faced him. “I see. I’m sharing my pile of dirt with your mother.”
“Well...”
“How are we getting along together? Any scratching or hair-pulling?”
“I’m serious,” Charles said. “MacNeil thinks that I was over-spoiled and dominated by my mother and too dependent on her, and that when she died, I looked around for a substitute, someone who resembled her in appearance.”
Her mouth opened in amazement. “Are you telling me that the reason you married me was because I looked like your mother? I’ve seen pictures of...”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. MacNeil did.”
“That old quack...”
“Please listen. The real point is that when we did get married, you weren’t in the least like my mother. You paid very little attention to me, you didn’t try to boss me, and God knows, you didn’t over-spoil me.”
“I’m not the type.”
“That’s it, exactly. You’re not the type, and I can’t change you, so I must change my conception of you and my expectations. I must change myself. I can, too. I already have to a certain extent.”
He waited for her confirmation, but she could think of nothing to say. She felt tired and confused. Following Charles as he scampered up and down his little detours was exercise too strenuous for a cumbersome mind like her own. Perhaps he and the doctor were right, perhaps they had evolved, with a little deft borrowing from Cove, Freud and Mary Baker Eddy, a system whereby Charles could live at peace with himself.
“I’m going to get rid of all the old trappings of dependence,” he went on. “Even Brown and Forbes, because they were with my mother and they both treat me as if I were still a kid. The only person I need is you, Martha.”
He came over to her and put his hand under her chin and raised her face to his. “I’m not asking you if you love me. I’m afraid to.”
She moved away from him with an imperceptible sigh.
“I have to be going now, Charles. Where’s my coat?”
“But it isn’t dry yet. You can’t wear a damp coat all the way home, you might catch cold.”
“I never catch cold.”
“That’s right, I’d forgotten.” He went out to the porch for her coat, walking as if his legs had suddenly become heavy.
When he returned he said again, “It’s still damp,” but he spoke listlessly as if he knew very well she would leave, even if the coat were dripping wet.
As soon as she was out of sight of the cottage she began to run. The pine needles were slippery as ice and the moist earth treacherous as quicksand, but she kept on running, senselessly, knowing that no matter where she ran, how fast or how far, Charles would be waiting for her.
Chapter 18
She stood on the veranda, watching the cab drive away, until it was no larger than a pink bug scuttling down the road.
She thought, I’ll have to go over and tell Steve what happened right away, before I lose my courage as I did with Charles.
It was broad daylight and everyone was at home, their eyes and their tongues ready for the moment that she would cross the lawn. I must comb my hair, she thought, as if the mere act of combing her hair and tidying herself might prejudice the watchers in her favor.
She went into the house and up to her bedroom, moving through the halls uneasily, as if she expected to be challenged.
She picked up her brush and began to do her hair. She avoided her own face in the mirror, half-afraid that she might see Charles’s face there, too, peering over her shoulder, laughing and malicious: See? I beat you home, didn’t I? And I’ll be right behind you, too, when you go over to see your lover. I know you won’t mind my coming along. You’re so honest, you have nothing to conceal. You’ve always been so honest!
With a stifled exclamation she flung the brush away. It struck the mirror.
The mirror splintered into smiles. She saw her face cracked and wrinkled like a hag’s and her head chopped into sections like a phrenologist’s chart.
“Martha!” her mother called out. “Is that you, dear?”
She turned, alert, suspicious. “Yes?”
Her mother trailed into the room, looking sleepy. “Oh, there you are.”
“Yes.”
“I thought I heard something break.”
“The mirror.”
“What a shame. Be careful you don’t cut yourself.”
“I broke it on purpose,” Martha said. She realized that her mother knew this already, had, in fact, figured it out as soon as she entered the room. Her mother’s vagueness was a camouflage, a protection; if she pretended not to notice things, she would not be expected to do anything about them.
I wonder how much else she’s figured out, Martha thought. She said aloud, “I went out to see Charles.”
“How is he?”
“Fine. He’ll be coming home one of these days.”
“Won’t that be nice.”
She didn’t answer, and her mother repeated deliberately, “I said, won’t that be nice.” She didn’t look sleepy anymore. She had stepped out of her vagueness as out of a negligee, and put on something sharp and tight. “Won’t it, dear?”
“Yes, won’t it.”
From downstairs came the sound of Laura fooling with the piano, snatches of boogie-woogie, long sweet chords and low blue ones like ecstatic groans.