“He’s intelligent and loyal,” said Oliver. “He’s a damn good doctor, too. He pulled Tony through.”
Lucy nodded again. “All true. But you know several other things about him too, don’t you? About him and other women, for example?”
“Well,” said Oliver, “it’s always hard to be sure.”
“Now you’re lying again, Oliver,” Lucy said gently. “You see what I mean? You know about him and Mrs. Wales. You know about him and Evelyn Mueller. You know about him and Charlotte Stevens, because it started in our house two years ago and people have been talking about it right at our own dinner table ever since.”
“All right.” Oliver was cornered. “So I know.”
“And now I’m going to tell you something else,” Lucy said mildly. “He’s tried with me, too. Because that’s the kind of man he is. Because he can’t see a woman more than twice without making the effort. You must have known that, too.”
“I refuse to believe it,” Oliver said.
“Of course you do. And you went to his house a hundred times and invited him to ours. And all the others. The wives and husbands. The attached, the divorced, the dissatisfied, the curious, the loose … you knew about them all. And you were polite to them and friendly to them and laughed, the way all our friends do, when the talk turned that way, or when there was a scandal in the newspaper. But when it struck home you didn’t laugh. All that tolerance, all that civilization, all that humor, it turned out, was not for use at home.”
“Stop it,” Oliver said.
But Lucy went on, inexorably. “I’ve been thinking about all this, Oliver, for the last ten days, and I’ve decided you were right. At least what you said was right, even if you didn’t live up to it.”
“We’ll live any way you want,” said Oliver. “We’ll stop seeing anyone you say. We’ll start with a whole new group of friends.”
“I didn’t say that,” Lucy said. “I like our friends. Part of the reason for my feeling that I’ve been happy for so long has been because of them. I’d hate not to see them any more.”
Oliver stood up, his face flushed. “What in the name of God do you want, then?” he shouted.
“I want to live,” Lucy said quietly, “so that no one will ever be able to say liar again to me. So that I’ll never be able to say liar to myself.”
“Good,” Oliver said hoarsely. “If you mean that, I’m glad all this happened.”
“Not so fast,” Lucy said. “As usual, you’re in a hurry to settle for half the truth. The pretty half. The half that you can believe in publicly. The attractive half. The half that makes you feel noble and self-satisfied. But the private half—the secret, unpleasant, harmful half—that exists, too, Oliver. From now on you’re going to have to take them both together …”
“If you want to confess about anyone else,” Oliver said, “about any other college boys, or doctors, or dinner guests, or people on a train—spare me. I’m not interested in your past. I don’t want to hear about it.”
“I don’t want to confess the past, Oliver,” said Lucy softly, “because there’s nothing there.”
“Then what?” Oliver asked.
“I want to confess the future,” said Lucy.
Oliver stared at her, baffled, angry. “Are you threatening me?” he asked.
“No,” said Lucy. “I just want to make sure that if ever I go into our house again I come in clean. If I finally come home, we start a new marriage and I want that understood.”
“Nobody starts a new marriage after fifteen years,” said Oliver.
“No.” Lucy nodded agreeably. “Perhaps not. Well then, a different marriage. Up to now you’ve treated me as though I’ve been the same girl you met so many years ago. As though I’m still twenty, to be cuddled, protected, patronized. Finally, in any important matter, disregarded. And until now I’ve always accepted it because …” She shrugged. “Who knows why I’ve accepted it? Because I was lazy. Because it was easier. Because I was afraid to anger you. But now … now you’ve been so angry that there’s nothing more to fear. The marriage has been broken. Maybe it will be put together again and maybe it won’t. Whatever happens I see that I’ll survive it. So—now—I no longer accept you.”
“What does that mean?” Oliver asked.
“When I agree with you, good,” said Lucy. “I accept you. When I don’t—I go my own way.”
“This is the damnedest thing,” Oliver said. “You behave like a slut …”
Lucy raised her hand warningly. “You mustn’t use words like that, Oliver.”
“Whatever you call it. You commit the crime, the transgression … God, what’s the polite word for it? And somehow you’re the one who’s laying down the terms.”
“Yes, Oliver,” said Lucy. “Because your terms don’t work any more. I’ve been trying to figure out these last ten days why I did what I did, after so long …”
“Why?” Oliver demanded.
“You’re not going to like this, Oliver,” Lucy said warningly.
“Get it over with,” Oliver said bitterly. “Get all the poison out this afternoon and we can start forgetting it on the trip home.”
“We can’t forget it,” said Lucy. “Not you and not me. In many ways you were a good husband. You were generous to me. I was warm in winter and well fed and you remembered my birthday and you gave me a handsome son whom I used to love a great deal …”
“What now?” asked Oliver sharply. “What are you going to tell me now?”
“You treated me as a child so long,” said Lucy slowly, “that the times when you suddenly had to treat me as a woman, when you made love to me, I had a child’s reaction. Bored, embarrassed, incomplete, disgusted.”
“You’re lying,” Oliver said.
“I told you I was never going to let anybody say that to me again,” said Lucy.
“But you always seemed …”
“Most of the time it was a performance, Oliver,” said Lucy gently. “Not always—but most of the time.”
“For so many years?” Oliver asked dully, disbelievingly.
“Yes.”
“Why? Why did you do it?” Oliver asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t think you could bear it,” said Lucy, “if I did.”
“And now?”
“And now,” said Lucy, “I’m more interested in myself than in you, I guess. That’s what you did to me that evening ten days ago, Oliver.”
“I’m not going to listen to you!” Oliver was raging now. “For five thousand years women have been excusing whatever cheap excursions they’ve made by wailing that their husbands were too old or too preoccupied or too inadequate to satisfy them. Do me the honor of thinking of something original.”
“Don’t think,” said Lucy, “that I’m trying to throw all the blame on you. Maybe if you’d been different, if we’d been different together, it wouldn’t have happened. Nothing would have happened. But,” she explained honestly, “it wasn’t only that. I wanted him. For a long time I wouldn’t even admit it to myself. But after it was over I was sorry I’d been so foolish and waited so long.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Oliver asked. “Are you going to see him again?”
“Oh, no,” said Lucy lightly. “He has his own … inadequacies. He’s too young. He’ll be inconsequential for another ten years. He served a useful purpose but it’s back to school for the children now.”
“A useful purpose,” Oliver said sardonically.
“Yes,” said Lucy. “He made me feel what a delightful thing it was to be a woman again. He was nothing—but at the age of thirty-five he made me see what pleasure was to be found in men.”
“That’s a whore’s philosophy,” Oliver said.
“Is it?” Lucy shrugged. “I don’t think so and I don’t believe you think so. Whatever it is, that’s the way I feel and you might as well know it.”