She thought it sounded just fine. He made it look like a necessity of life. She was afraid, though, lest he be insufficiently nourished by what he could actually write. When she heard he had given it up to sell insurance, she hoped he had found some way to make insurance equally nourishing.
One thing bothered her about his creed. If writing was a necessity of life, what would her Freshman English students do? Or herself. Except for letters, an occasional diary, some reminiscences in a notebook, she was no writer. How did she survive?
Well, she was a reader. If Edward couldn’t live without writing, she couldn’t live without reading. And without me, Edward, she says, you’d have no reason to exist. He was a transmitter, spending his resources, she a receptor who became richer the more she received. Her way with the chaos in her mind was to cultivate it through the articulations of others, by which she meant the reading of a lifetime with whose aid she created the interesting architecture and geography of herself. She had constructed over the years a rich and civilized country, full of history and culture with views and vistas she had never dreamed of in the days when Edward wanted to make his visions known. How thin those visions seemed compared to the lands she had seen. Generously, in the years since then, she has wished him a good education. Now along comes Nocturnal Animals. Whether it shows an education is unknown, but at least it’s a vision and he’s making that known, and Susan is glad for him.
All through the day as she works about the house, Susan looks forward to reading tonight. She has discarded her contempt for Edward’s folly, which was no more than her own. Take his book frankly and be glad of it. If the Edward who wrote it seems more intelligent and better than the Edward she knew, no reason to be surprised. She looks forward to meeting the new Edward on Friday, twenty-five years of maturity added on. But be prepared for him not to shine. Though some writers as people seem nicer than their books (you like them fine but not what they write), others are not so nice, selfish or surly, though their books are attractive, intelligent, and full of light.
Yet to tell the truth (Susan’s truth), the Edward of this book is still concealed. Hidden in the intensity of Tony’s case, like police invisible behind the spotlight. That won’t last. When Tony, having tracked down his disaster and found his murdered wife and child, steps off the common ground of his misfortune and into his personal Tonyness, then will Edward appear? Susan thinks what to say until then. So far, only this: You begin well enough. If you can’t keep it up, at least you have this. Which is a relief, Edward, you can’t imagine what a relief.
THE SECOND SITTING
ONE
It’s late before Susan Morrow returns to her book. She sits on the couch with the last two hours crashing in her head, of Dorothy trotting down the steps with Arthur to his car, Rosie hunting for her Christmas horses, Henry upstairs with the enormous sound of Wagner at full strength—not rock for Henry but Wagner that she makes him shut his door and lower the volume. She finds the manuscript on the coffee table under the Monopoly board, which someone has dropped with thousands of dollars and green houses and hotels strewn about. She relaxes, closes her eyes. In a moment she will extricate it from that abandoned wealth. In a moment she will read.
Her mind resists focus. If young Arthur, rosy cheeked, is really the nice young fellow he pretends to be, shy, not looking you in the eye, incipient madness, insane boy killer. While Martha settles down on the Monopoly board, money and all, hotels poking her belly, and all that world of Tony underneath. When Susan slips her hand in, Martha spills to the floor, taking modern civilization with her. Murl you, Martha says.
Susan puts the unread manuscript in the box on the couch, finished pages in a pile next to it. Looks for her place, marked by a piece of red and green Christmas paper. She thinks. Tries to remember Tony who lost his family in the woods. Not ready yet. Wrong mood. She dreams a little, thinking herself into Tony. Dreaming, comparing his case to hers, what kind of novel would Susan’s troubles make? How much more terrible his are, except that hers are real, his imaginary, made up by somebody—by Edward. His are simpler too, stark questions of life and death, in contrast to hers, which are ordinary, messy, and minor, complicated by uncertainty as to whether they rate as troubles at all. Troubles are the homeless, people ravaged by poverty, war, crime, disease. Is Marilyn Linwood a trouble? Whose affair with Arnold ended three years ago but might still be going on. Susan doesn’t know if it is, honestly, she doesn’t. And won’t ask. Not after all their talks and the understanding reached, according to which Linwood has no significance, since this marriage, Arnold says, is strong enough to withstand all rival attractions. Not something to bother a marriage counselor about.
Dreaming on brings up floating Mrs. Givens, and through her Mrs. Macomber the professor’s wife who sued Arnold for malpractice because her husband got a stroke after heart surgery. Whose anger and bitterness (understandable in human terms) made Susan cringe, responsible by virtue of wifehood for Arnold’s hand with the scalpel and the clamps and precautions in an operating room she has never seen. Doctor’s wife equals doctor, which Arnold takes for granted while she relies on his estimate of himself. Such a good surgeon, brilliant, skillful, careful, trustworthy. She knows without having to ask that poor Mrs. Macomber’s suit was ignorant if not malicious or frivolous, and that’s what she told nosy Mrs. Givens. If the wife doesn’t believe her husband is right, who besides the husband ever will? The truth is, Susan doesn’t know how good a doctor her husband is. Some people admire him: patients praise him, a few colleagues, certain nurses, but what does she know? He works hard, takes it seriously, studies. He never seemed especially bright to her, but his reputation must be good or he could not have become a candidate for Cedar Hall (Chickwash). Patients die. He says it can’t be avoided and takes it stoically. Sometimes when he talks about dead patients she wants to cry, though they are only strangers, for someone ought to cry besides those who have an interest. But she doesn’t cry lest it look like a criticism which she has no right to make.
Enough. This is time she’s wasting, unhealthy. A whiff of self-pity, like body odor. The book will restore her, that’s what it’s for. She looks at the page on top. Puffs on her glasses, tries to remember. Tony Hastings, the crime, the clearing with the mannequins. And more: the return home and the funeral. At last she remembers, he’s flying to the Cape with Paula his sister. She wonders what new things will happen to Tony Hastings, now that his family is dead, already written in those still unread pages.
Nocturnal Animals 12
Tony Hastings did not want to recover. He kept energy low to avoid the danger. He came to the Cape so as not to argue with Paula about going to the Cape. Merton met them in a station wagon, touched his arm, long face in his beard, expressing the inexpressible. Tony saw the intent, and realized he didn’t like Merton. He never had, which was a surprise because he had always liked Merton. He didn’t like the kids either. They sat in the back seat, solemn so as not to get shushed.