“She didn’t know what she was saying.”
Warren sighed. “No, and she rarely does. Still, she is Robin’s mother. Which gives her certain rights, the most among them being that of custody of Robin. If you took the girl and vanished into the wilderness, you would be guilty of kidnapping. I doubt you’d have to worry seriously about criminal charges but you would have to worry that at any point Gretchen could have you arrested and retrieve Robin, none of which would come under the heading of positive experiences for impressionable young female children. So as things shape up—”
“Suppose I had her committed?”
“Yes, you could do that. It’s more than possible you ought to. If it weren’t for Robin, that’s exactly what you ought to do.”
“Gretchen gets completely paranoid if I so much as mention a psychiatrist.”
“She’s had bad experiences in that area.” Warren hesitated for a moment, then shook his head shortly. “No, that’s not even a consideration, is it? To hell, for a moment, with what Gretchen wants or doesn’t want.”
“If it would help her—”
“To hell with that, too. I think it’s illusory to think of hospitalization as potentially helpful. In cases like Gretchen’s, the rate of failure is beyond belief. No, the important question is the effect not on Gretchen but on the rest of the world.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Life is for the living,” he went on. “It’s the survivors who have to be considered.”
“And?”
“If Gretchen were committed, that doesn’t mean you would get custody of Robin. In all probability, Robin would be made a ward of the court. Which would probably entail internment in an orphanage or something of the sort. Placement in a foster home, perhaps. No, you see, commitment might be a good idea if Robin were not in the picture.”
Warren went on talking, explaining what Peter had to do to ensure Robin’s safety within the existing relationship. Peter nodded along, barely able to concentrate on the flow of words. There was little that Warren was saying now that other friends had not recently said, little that had not occurred to Peter himself. Robin could not be left alone with Gretchen. Gretchen could not be counted upon to assume any responsibility. And Peter, in the course of this, had to go on working, had to go on living his own life—
“There’s one thing I could do,” he cut in.
“What’s that, pray tell?”
“I could marry Gretchen.”
“Do that and I’d personally sign commitment papers. And not for Gretchen, dear boy. For you.”
“I’m serious.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I wouldn’t want to do it. I could marry her and then adopt Robin legally.”
“Ah, I’m beginning to see.” Warren ran a hand through his hair. “And, as adoptive father, claim custody of the child. I doubt it would work. It might in a short-term sense, but at any point Gretchen could decide to be sane again, hire a lawyer, and sue for custody. And probably get it — the silver cord tying mother to child has a powerful grip on the American judicial imagination. But even if this were possible, Peterkin, it’s a hell of a bad reason to get married. I don’t know of any overwhelmingly good ones, but that’s worse than most. There’s a limit to how thoroughly you can fuck up your own life on Robin’s behalf, you know.”
“I’m not sure it can be fucked up much worse than it already is.”
“No.” Warren shook his head. “No, things can always get worse. That’s how one sustains oneself in this vale of tears, Peter my lad. With the knowledge, that bad as things are, they can get worse.”
But how much worse could they get?
Gradually he began to organize his life so that Robin was protected from Gretchen. Whenever possible, he kept the child in his own company. When he had to work, Robin would wait at the Lemon Tree, or at the Raparound, or with Tanya or Linda or Anne. Once he took the girl to the theater with him. Robin kept remarkably quiet, but Tony Bartholomew had not been amused and Peter was given to understand that he could not baby-sit and light a show at the same time.
“You know,” Tanya told him, “it’s sort of a nice feeling, isn’t it? I mean it’s tragic and all, but if you look at it a certain way, it’s like Robin is being brought up by the town of New Hope. And it gives me a kind warm feeling, if you know what I mean.”
Later he reported that conversation to Anne. He had come to collect Robin after a show and was sitting over a cup of coffee, postponing as usual the return to the apartment and to Gretchen. Anne fixed her large dark eyes on him, then suddenly erupted in laughter.
“Oh, God,” she said. “I can see it now — a title in a true confessions magazine. ‘I Was Brought Up by the Town of New Hope.’ Talk about unfit parents. This whole town is an unfit mother.”
Yet it was working out. And each time he returned to the apartment, each time he returned to Gretchen, he recalled Warren’s words. Things could always get worse.
The thought did not sustain him. Rather, it terrified him. Because things would get worse. They had to get worse. It was inevitable. Things were working out for the time being because Gretchen was inactive, silent, acquiescent, a human vegetable. She never interfered with his caring for Robin, never left the apartment, never attempted to break the living pattern he had established.
“Someday you’ll come home and find me dead, Petey.”
He could not open the door to the apartment without that shadow passing over him. She would not literally starve herself to death; in her current passivity she accepted enough of the food he prepared for her to sustain her life. But she might kill herself. She talked about it occasionally, and the threat of finding her there, hanging or wrists slashed or dead through any of the devices that his imagination constantly provided, was on his mind whenever he stood before that door with Robin’s small hand clutched in his.
“I wish you would kill me, Petey.” That was a number she got off on one night, stringing it out endlessly until he managed to shut her up. “I want to die but I’ll never have the nerve to do it myself. But you could do it for me. You always do things for me, Petey. You could do this for me. I would help. We could make it look like suicide. We could figure out a plan. You’re good at plans, Petey. You could come up with a good plan.” And she went on telling him how much better it would be for everyone if she were dead. Better for her, because this was no way to live, no way to go on. And better for him and better for Robin and better for Linda, because he and Linda could get married and Robin could be their little girl and everyone could devote themselves to forgetting that Gretchen Vann ever lived.
Until one day, as he walked alone along the Towpath, he realized something.
He wanted her dead.
The thought caught him, sent a chill through him. He tried to get it out of his mind by force of will but it echoed in his brain and would not go away. In his mind he heard his own voice, cold and brittle: I want her to die.
Thirteen
Warren put his car in the driveway, walked to the front door of his house and fitted his key in the lock. As he opened the door, he heard Bert at the piano. He smiled and eased the door open slowly, silently. He padded softly across the plush powder-blue carpet and stopped at the archway leading to the living room.
“Night and Day.” “Always True to You in My Fashion.” “You’re the Top.”
He took deep silent breaths and let the music wrap itself around him. Usually he arrived home before Bert, but tonight he had gone with a crowd to the Barge Inn, had put himself outside of a half dozen cognacs, and Bert had finished his gig at the Carversville Inn and had come home still full of music. Bert had had classical training, and had spent many drunken evenings weeping over his wasted life, sure that he ought to be playing Mozart and Chopin on recital stages. But Warren knew that his special magic was with the material he performed routinely while people drank and talked over the notes he played. Cole Porter, Rodgers, and Hart, Harold Arlen — Bert’s fingers (not long and graceful, not at all, rather short and stubby but so sure of themselves, so certain at the keyboard) gave standards and show tunes a special grace.