Her mother’s voice picked its way carefully among the notes. “She doesn’t play pretty little tunes anymore, just these modern pieces that keep reminding you of things or promising you things.” She added, without change of tone, “Well, if you don’t want to live with him anymore, why haven’t you got nerve enough to pack up and get out?”
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you? If you’re thinking you have any obligations to Laura and me, you can forget it. I got along all right for years without Charley’s money. As for Laura, you’re not doing her any favor by staying here.”
She went over to the window and looked out, speaking over her shoulder, as if it were a matter of no importance: “There’s just one thing you can’t do. You can’t keep on living with Charles and making a cuckold out of him. He won’t like it when he finds out. Men are pretty fussy on that point.”
She didn’t turn around to see the effect of her words. She seemed to be musing aloud in front of a picture.
“You know, Steve’s the kind of man I understand better than you do, though in my day, we had a different name for them — lady-killers.”
“You can’t tell me a thing about...”
“Yes, I can. I’ve known quite a few of them. Steve’s a little different, he’s a cut above the rest of them, but he shares the same weakness. He can’t help chasing skirts, and the more inaccessible the skirt, the better the chase. And then what happens when the chase is over, you should know. It’s happened to you before. You got left. He walked out on you.”
She turned. There was no pity or censure in her face, it was as immovable as a fact.
“I didn’t say a word to you the first time. You were so much in love with him, it wouldn’t have done any good. Besides, you’ve always had to learn the hardest way. You could never know how high a cliff was until you fell off and broke a few bones. But, do you know, I used to nearly go crazy lying up in bed listening to that darned couch creak.”
Martha averted her face, as humiliated as if she’d been told that every scene on the couch had had a voyeur.
“I used to have to bite my tongue to keep from saying anything, Martha. Sometimes I prayed that you’d come out of it all right, and sometimes I even planned what I’d do if you had a baby. I would have taken it as my own.”
“Why tell me this now?” Martha said harshly.
“Because your life isn’t entirely your own anymore. You signed a bit of it over to Charley when you took his name.” She gave a dry little smile. “And the couch still creaks. You’ve fooled nobody — except Charles.”
Except Charles. The words brought Charles’s face to Martha’s mind. Charles was not smiling or sarcastic. He looked lost and helpless, and his eyes were strained as if he were trying hard to make out what everyone else saw very distinctly.
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I went out to tell him, to ask him for a divorce, and then I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t. He depends on me so much.”
“You may just think that because you depend on him so much.”
“Me depend on Charles?”
“Yes, I think you do. You may go prancing off across the lawn, thumbing your nose at the world for love, but you wouldn’t be so blithe about it if Charley wasn’t in the background, Charley and everything he stands for. You’re far too realistic to deny that.” She paused, frowning. “I wish Charley would push you around a little bit,” she said seriously. “I feel you’re the kind of woman who gets along best when a great many demands are made on you. Great demands, I mean, like having to go out and work all day and coming home at night to a husband who’s capable of slapping you around and a houseful of wet babies and dirt.”
“You’re making quite a few unpleasant remarks about me today.”
“That wasn’t unpleasant. I consider it a compliment.”
“Thanks. If you’re finished, I’ll go now.”
“I won’t ask you where.”
“You don’t have to, I’ll tell you. I’m going over to see Steve.”
“Give him my regards,” her mother said blandly. “In spite of what I’ve said about him, I’ve always been fond of Steve. I hoped for quite a while that he’d marry you. Is he going to, this time?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose I should offer my congratulations, but I think it would be safer to reserve them.”
She departed abruptly, without waiting for a reply.
Martha thought, I should follow her and defend Steve. I should say something in his favor. But for the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything to say in his favor. She felt only the old, implacable resentment: he walked out on me, he jilted me.
She went into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub full force. The roar drowned out for a moment the echo of her mother’s words.
She undressed quickly and got into the tub. The little waves reminded her of Charles and how blue and cold his skin had looked when he came out of the lake. She saw her own skin, pink with health and the heat of the water, and she thought, he shouldn’t go swimming until he’s better. I should have made him promise.
She crossed the lawn, pursued by the eyes of the windows and the melancholy tongue of the piano.
When she reached the apartment she walked in without knocking. Steve was making his bed. He finished tucking in the corners before he turned and came over to her.
“Well?” He put his hands on her shoulders, as if ready to shake her. “What did he say?”
“I... I didn’t ask him. He was in swimming.”
“I see. He must be a hell of a strong swimmer. You’ve been away six hours.”
“I mean, at first he was swimming. He shouldn’t have been, he’s not well enough, so I had to stop him.”
“And then?”
She swallowed. “Then we had some lunch and I came home.”
“Very jolly. Did the lunch give him hives?”
“Charles can’t help getting hives,” she said curtly. “It’s nothing to laugh about.”
He dropped his hands as suddenly as if she’d slapped them away. “You sound like a mother protecting her young. Don’t you think Charles is old enough to have graduated from the growing-boy class?”
“Let’s not quarrel... Steve, kiss me, will you?”
“I don’t want to quarrel and I don’t want to kiss you, either. I just want to know where I’m at. What’s come over you since last night?”
She lowered her eyes. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Remember how you acted last night? You were happy, contented, you didn’t care what anyone thought, you even felt respectable, you said. The happy adulterer. Well” — he eyed her grimly — “you don’t look so goddamn happy to me. Has anybody been talking to you?”
“My mother. She knows about us.”
“And she doesn’t approve, of course.”
“No.”
“Naturally. I haven’t got as much money as Charles. I can’t give her or the kid or you any security. All I can offer is a little excitement and I’m afraid she’s a shade too old for the kind of excitement I can provide.”
“She believes,” Martha said cautiously, “that even if I divorce Charles, you won’t marry me, you’ll be tired of me by that time.”
“And you believe it, too?”
“I don’t know.”
“The fact is,” he said after a deliberate pause, “that I’m pretty tired of you already. I have to think about you too much. That makes me tired. Which reminds me, do you mind if I finish making my bed?”
He went back to the bed, threw on another blanket and began tucking it in at the sides.
“You haven’t enough of the tart in you,” he said as he worked. “You can go to bed with a tart and then forget all about her. You can turn over and go to sleep, providing you’ve got a padlock on your wallet.”