Experiment in Springtime

Chapter 15

It went on like that for a week. He got up late in the mornings and spent the rest of the day sitting around waiting until it was dark enough for her to come. He had no ambition and no desire to do anything, to start his book, or to contact some of his old friends or even to take a walk. He read a little, but usually he sat thinking about Martha, staring out between the slats of the Venetian blinds until his eyes went out of focus. Even when he looked away at something in the room, the slats remained before his eyes, like prison bars going the wrong way.

His thoughts at the beginning of the day were pleasant: she was beautiful, she belonged to him, every single pore of her skin belonged to him, she was his wife.

If, at that point, he could have gone over and talked to her or she could have come to him, he might never have reached the second stage of thinking. It was then that the question marks came to life in his head, sharp and cruel as fishhooks: What about you and Charles, my dear? How often did you go to bed with him? Sleep with him afterwards? You have a double bed, of course? Of course. Oversize, custom-built, Beautyrest mattress and guaranteed silent springs.

Bloody little fishhooks.

Was he any good in bed? Did you have the light off or on? Were you naked or did you have to tickle him a little with a fancy nightgown and some phony perfume? I like the way you smell without perfume. Your sweat is clean and sweet as a baby’s. Does Charles ever say things like that to you? What does he say? Tell me what he says, tell me all about Charles. Five years is a long time with a man. You can make a hell of a lot of love in five years, can’t you? Did you?

“No, I didn’t.” She answered that one calmly. “We didn’t get along that way very well.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t love him, I guess.”

“I read once that some women close their eyes and think about some other man. Did you think about me?”

“No. I didn’t think about anything at all.”

She didn’t seem to resent his questions or try to get out of answering them. She was patient; she didn’t point out to him how unreasonable it was for him to be wildly jealous, she didn’t once remind him that he had walked out on her.

Nor did she ask any questions. That struck him as funny.

“Aren’t you interested?” he said. “I might have had a couple of dozen women. Don’t you want to hear about them?”

“No. It would only make me feel bad.”

“I want you to feel bad.”

She smiled, rather sadly. “You’ll always have some woman crazy about you. I mustn’t let it bother me.”

Her smile and her calmness enraged him. “Goddamn it, I’ll make it bother you.” He put his hands on her throat. It was warm and vulnerable, and the pulse beat against his thumbs like tiny hearts.

His hands dropped abruptly. “I used to have a baby duck when I was a kid,” he said. “Stuffed, of course. It always used to bother me.” He gave a little laugh. “Your neck reminded me of it, it’s so soft.”

It was like that every day. He’d start out feeling good about her, and then the questions would start and the resentment and finally the violence that ended in love-making. Confused, unreal, unreasonable days, with Charles in the background, a silent, motionless shadow, but one that might start moving toward them at any hour. She said she’d heard nothing from him, she didn’t know when he was coming back or what he would do when he came back.

Toward the end of the week he went over to the house for lunch. They all acted surprised and pleased to see him.

“Welcome, stranger,” Lily said.

“What you been living on?” Mrs. Putnam said. “Air?”

“I’ve been going out for meals,” he lied.

The two women believed him. “My cooking’s not good enough for you, eh?” Mrs. Putnam said.

“Too good. I might get fat.”

Yes, both the women were innocent, he didn’t have to worry about them. It was Brown who had to be convinced.

“You don’t look so good,” Brown said. “You look pooped out.”

“I am.” Let Brown make something of that if he liked.

Brown liked. “Maybe you’ve been staying up too late nights, eh? I see your light on sometimes three, four o’clock in the morning.”

“I have insomnia. I get up and read now and then.”

“I used to have that kind of insomnia myself,” Brown said solemnly. “It hasn’t bothered me for quite a few years.”

Steve raised his eyebrows politely. “Is that so?”

“Not since I took up philosophy, in fact. Philosophy is a substitute for a number of things.”

“I’ll have to try it.”

“Brown’s an old windbag,” Mrs. Putnam stated. “He don’t know anything about philosophy. He just makes things up as he goes along.”

“Women don’t understand these matters,” Brown said with a wink at Steve.

“Oh, don’t we?”

“Women are not stupid, you understand. No, I’d be the last man on earth to claim that women are stupid. They are simply reluctant to learn.”

Mrs. Putnam’s feelings were hurt. She didn’t offer anyone a second helping and she sipped her tea in silence as thick as dough.

Steve changed the subject. “Has anyone heard when Mr. Pearson’s coming back?”

“Not exactly,” Brown said, with a wouldn’t-you-like-to-know grin. “I just heard he was getting along fine, the country air is doing him good.”

“It’s getting away from her that’s doing him the good,” Lily said.

“Don’t gossip,” Mrs. Putnam warned her.

“That isn’t gossip, it’s...”

“It is so. It’s biting the hand that feeds you.”

“She don’t feed me, he does.”

Steve lit a cigarette, feeling suddenly a little weak and sick. He wasn’t used to full meals anymore, that was it. Or maybe it was the reference to Martha and the malice in Lily’s voice and the talk about biting hands. Charles had bitten Martha’s hand, but no one mentioned that. Whatever was said was in Charles’s favor. He had no faults, he was the god of the backstairs.

“Nobody seems to like Mrs. Pearson very much,” Steve said.

The women exchanged glances.

“I do,” Brown said unexpectedly. “I didn’t used to but I do now. She’s got a lot of guts. I’m not saying anything against Mr. Pearson; he’s a good guy. But...” He looked sharply at Lily, defying her to interrupt. “...he’s not easy to live with. For the people who work for him, sure. But not for a wife.”

He felt intensely grateful to Brown for defending her. He wanted to shake hands with him and congratulate him on his perspicacity and have him over for a drink.

“I admit she’s improved,” Mrs. Putnam said. “The trouble is, she hasn’t got enough to do. She should have a couple of kids or some dogs.”

“Or a lover,” Brown said.

Mrs. Putnam told him he had a dirty, dirty mind and there wasn’t a moral bone in his body, and ten chances to one, he was a Communist, not a philosopher at all, just plain Communist.

In the midst of the argument that followed, Steve got up and went outside.

The air was still, the noon sun hot on his face. He looked up at it, squinting, a little surprised to find that it was still there though he hadn’t noticed it for a long time. He hadn’t been noticing anything, the day of the week or the weather, but now everything struck him at once. It was Saturday, and the end of spring. The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.

I’ll get Martha, he thought. We’ll go for a walk in the woods and lie in the sun and I’ll pick some flowers for her hair. Trilliums or violets.

No, it’s too late for trilliums or violets.

Mushrooms, then. We can gather mushrooms and bring them home and I’ll cook them for her.

You’d both croak, buddy. You don’t know a mushroom from a toadstool.

We can lie in the sun, anyway.

If it doesn’t rain.

I’ll protect her from the rain. I’ll give her my coat and my shirt, and I’ll...

Give her your pants, too.

He began to move slowly toward the garage. It was no use, no use trying to pretend they were an ordinary couple in love, or that they could do ordinary things like lie in the sun. The sun had nothing to do with them. Their lying was done at night. They met like thieves in the dark, they talked in whispers like murderers, they fled before the dawn like ghosts.

The smell of lilacs soured, the budding trees were an insult. Deliberately, with every step he took, he dug his heels into the ground, leaving behind him the scars of his feet, a trail of bruised grass.

As soon as she came that night, he told her about the trilliums, laughing to show her how funny it was.

“Trilliums,” he said. “Can you beat it?”

She put her head against his shoulder so that every time she blinked, her eyelashes brushed his neck like feathers.

“I like flowers,” she said seriously. “The woods, too.”

“I don’t think you have a sense of humor, my darling.”

“I haven’t.” He felt her frown against his neck. “I would like to have. Charles always thought I was funny when I didn’t think I was.”

“Good old Charles. I haven’t thought of him for all of three minutes, so you have to bring him up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.” He waved a greeting into the air. “Why, hello, Charley! Come on in. Glad to have you with us. Sit right here on my lap.”

She raised her head so she could look into his face.

“Now was that funny?” she asked. “I mean it. Was it?”

“Moderately.”

“Oh.”

“Not my best effort, though. I do better in blackface.”

“You sound very bitter tonight,” she said. “Is anything the matter?”

“What a question!”

“I’d like to know. I thought you were... I want you to be as happy as I am.”

“Are you happy?”

“Very.”

“You don’t mind being furtive, skulking around in the dark to meet me?”

“I’m not furtive,” she said clearly. “I don’t feel that way.”

“What excuses do you give your mother or Laura for going out every night?”

“None. I just walk out.”

“Leave them wondering.”

“If they want to wonder, I can’t stop them.”

“You can’t stop Brown, either.”

She smiled slightly. “Oh, I haven’t tried to fool Brown. I knew I couldn’t. He may write and tell Charles, of course, but I don’t think he will. I think in his queer way Brown wants everybody to be quite happy, even me.”

“The legal profession has a fancy name for what we’re doing — adultery. You are an adulterer, my darling. A happy adulterer.”

She didn’t smile. “That’s right.”

“You don’t give a damn what people think.”

“No.”

“And a couple of weeks ago you were so respectable, you even wore a hat and gloves when you took a bath. The change makes sense, I suppose, but how or why...”

“I feel more respectable now,” she said. “I have you back.”

“And I’ve made an honest woman of you, I suppose?”

“Perhaps you have. That’s how I feel, anyhow.”

That’s how she looked, too. Proud and contented, as if she’d be quite willing to go on like this forever.

Well, I’m not, he thought, I won’t.

“Brown isn’t going to tell Charles,” he said. “You are.”

She was silent.

“You intended to tell him, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“I have.” He tried to sound patient, but there was a rough edge to his voice. “I called you my wife. Do you think I’ve said that to every woman I’ve crawled into bed with the last five years?”

“How many women?” she asked. “Many?”

“Enough.”

“Ten?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

“Twenty? Surely not twenty?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

She averted her head. “I can’t tell Charles because I don’t know where he is.”

“I’ll find him for you. I’ll even escort you there.”

“No. No, I’ll find him. It’s just that — I don’t know what to say.”

“Ask him for a divorce. If he wants to know why, tell him that, too.” Her shoulders were trembling and he tightened his arm around her. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“No.”

“If you are, I’ll come with you. I’ll be exhibit A.”

“I couldn’t stand that,” she said. “I really couldn’t. You’re so much — sturdier than Charles.”

He didn’t ask her what she meant. He had a feeling that he’d be better off if he didn’t know.