“Sure, Ben.”
“There’s a can of spaghetti in the cupboard and some fish cakes.”
Charlie didn’t particularly like fish cakes and spaghetti but he took the two cans out of the cupboard and opened them. Ben was in a peculiar mood, it would be better not to cross him even about so minor a thing as what to have for supper. He wanted to cross him, though; he wanted to tell him outright that he, Charlie, was a grown man of thirty-two and he didn’t have to account for every minute of his time and be told what to eat and how to spend the evening. So Louise was coming. Well, suppose he wasn’t there when she arrived. Suppose he walked out right now...
No, he couldn’t do that, not tonight anyway. Tonight she was bringing him something very important, very urgent. He didn’t understand why he considered it so important but it was as if she were going to hand him a key, a mysterious key which would unlock a door or a secret box.
He thought of the hidden delights behind the door, inside the box, and his hands began to tremble. When he put the fish cakes in the frying pan, the hot grease splattered his knuckles. He felt no pain, only a sense of wonder that this grease, which had no mind or will of its own, should be able to fight back and assert itself better than he could.
“For Pete’s sake, watch it,” Ben said. “You’re getting the stove dirty.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Put a lid on the frying pan. Use your head.”
“My head wouldn’t fit, Ben. It’s too small.”
Ben stared at him a moment, then he said sharply, “Stop doing that. Stop taking everything literally. You know damned well I didn’t mean for you to decapitate yourself and use your head as a lid for the frying pan. Don’t you know that?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it all, why do you do it then?”
Charlie turned, frowning, from the stove. “But you said, put a lid on the frying pan, use your head. You said that, Ben.”
“And you think I meant it like that?”
“I wasn’t really thinking. My mind was occupied with other things. Maybe with Louise coming and all like that.”
“Look, Charlie, I’m only trying to protect you. You pull something like this at work and they’ll consider you a moron.”
“No,” Charlie said gravely. “They just laugh. They think I’m being funny. Actually, I don’t have much of a sense of humor, do I?”
“No.”
“Did I ever? I mean, when we were boys together, Ben, before — well, before anything had happened, did I have a sense of humor then?”
“I can’t remember.”
“I bet you can if you tried. You’ve always had a good memory, Ben.”
“Now I’ve got a good forgetter,” Ben said. “Maybe that’s more essential in this life.”
“No, Ben, that’s wrong. It’s important for you to remember how it was with us when we were kids. Mother and Dad are dead, and I can’t remember, so if you don’t, it’s like it never happened and we were never kids together—”
“All right, all right, don’t get excited. I’ll remember.”
“Everything?”
“I’ll try.”
“Did I have a sense of humor?”
“Yes. Yes, you did, Charlie. You were a funny boy, a very funny boy.”
“Did we do a lot of laughing together, you and I and Mom and Dad?”
“Sure.”
“Louise laughs a lot. She’s very cheerful, don’t you think?”
“Louise is a very cheerful girl, yes.”
Slowly and thoughtfully, Charlie turned the fish cakes. They were burned but he didn’t care. It would only be easier to pretend they were small round tender steaks. “Ben?”
“Yes.”
“She wouldn’t stay cheerful very long if she married me, would she?”
“Stop talking like—”
“I mean, you haven’t leveled with her, Ben. She doesn’t realize what a drag I am and how she’d have to worry about me the way you do. I would hurt her. I would be hurting her all the time without meaning to, maybe without even knowing it. Would she be cheerful then? Would she?”
Ben sat down at the table, heavily and stiffly, as if each of the past five minutes had been a crippling year.
“Well? Would she, Ben?”
“I don’t know.”
Charlie looked dismayed, like a child who’s been used to hearing the same story with the same happy ending, and now the ending has been changed. It wasn’t happy any more, it wasn’t even an ending. Did the frog change into a prince? I don’t know. Did he live happily ever after with his princess? I don’t know.
Charlie said stubbornly, “I don’t like that answer. I want the other one.”
“There is no other one.”
“You always used to say that marriage changed a man, that Louise could be the making of me and we could have a good life together if we tried. Tell it to me just like that all over again, Ben.”
“I can’t.”
“All right then, give me hell. Tell me I’m downgrading myself, that I’d better look on the bright side of things, start putting on a front — that’s all true, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “Eat your supper.”
“How can I eat, not knowing?”
“The rest of us eat, not knowing. And work and sleep, not knowing.” He added in a gentler voice, “You’re doing all right, Charlie. You’re holding down a job, you’ve got a nice girlfriend, you’re keeping your nose clean — you’re doing fine, just fine.”
“And you’re not mad at me any more for being late?”
“No.”
“I flooded the engine, see. I had to wait and wait for the gas to drain out of it. I thought of calling you, but then I thought, Ben won’t be worrying, he knows I’m behaving myself, keeping my nose clean...” I watched from the road. The house is a long way back among the trees but I could see the child sitting at one of the front windows. Poor Jessie, poor sweetheart, resting her little bruised body. Why don’t her parents protect her? If anything happens to the girl it will be their fault, and their fault alone.
(6)
The Arlingtons arrived home from the beach at seven o’clock and Virginia went directly to her room, without saying a word. Howard was in the kitchen unpacking the picnic basket when the dog, Chap, began barking and pawing at the back door.
Howard called out, “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Uncle Howard. Jessie.”
“Oh. Well, come on in.”
Jessie went in, wearing a robe over her pajamas and carrying the book that weighed nearly half as much as she did. “Is Aunt Virginia here?”
“Oh, she’s here all right, but she’s incommunicado.”
“Does that mean in the bathroom?”
Howard laughed. “No, it means she’s sore at me.”
“Why?”
“A dozen reasons. She’s sunburned, she’s got sand in her hair, she doesn’t like the way she looks in a bathing suit, a bee stung her on the foot — all my fault, of course.” Howard put the picnic basket, now empty, on the top shelf of the broom closet, and closed the door. “When you grow up, are you going to fuss about things like that?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Atta girl.”
Jessie put the book on the table, then leaned over to pet the dog. Chap, smelling the butter that had dribbled down her chin from an ear of corn, began licking it off. Jessie was so flattered she stood the tickling without a giggle, though it was almost unbearable. “Do you think Chap likes me, Uncle Howard?”
“Obviously.”
“Does he like everybody?”
“As a matter of fact, no,” Howard said dryly. “He doesn’t even like me.”
“Why? Is he afraid of you?”
“Afraid of me? Why should he be? What gave you that idea?”