Experiment in Springtime

Chapter 18

She stood on the veranda, watching the cab drive away, until it was no larger than a pink bug scuttling down the road.

She thought, I’ll have to go over and tell Steve what happened right away, before I lose my courage as I did with Charles.

It was broad daylight and everyone was at home, their eyes and their tongues ready for the moment that she would cross the lawn. I must comb my hair, she thought, as if the mere act of combing her hair and tidying herself might prejudice the watchers in her favor.

She went into the house and up to her bedroom, moving through the halls uneasily, as if she expected to be challenged.

She picked up her brush and began to do her hair. She avoided her own face in the mirror, half-afraid that she might see Charles’s face there, too, peering over her shoulder, laughing and malicious: See? I beat you home, didn’t I? And I’ll be right behind you, too, when you go over to see your lover. I know you won’t mind my coming along. You’re so honest, you have nothing to conceal. You’ve always been so honest!

With a stifled exclamation she flung the brush away. It struck the mirror.

The mirror splintered into smiles. She saw her face cracked and wrinkled like a hag’s and her head chopped into sections like a phrenologist’s chart.

“Martha!” her mother called out. “Is that you, dear?”

She turned, alert, suspicious. “Yes?”

Her mother trailed into the room, looking sleepy. “Oh, there you are.”

“Yes.”

“I thought I heard something break.”

“The mirror.”

“What a shame. Be careful you don’t cut yourself.”

“I broke it on purpose,” Martha said. She realized that her mother knew this already, had, in fact, figured it out as soon as she entered the room. Her mother’s vagueness was a camouflage, a protection; if she pretended not to notice things, she would not be expected to do anything about them.

I wonder how much else she’s figured out, Martha thought. She said aloud, “I went out to see Charles.”

“How is he?”

“Fine. He’ll be coming home one of these days.”

“Won’t that be nice.”

She didn’t answer, and her mother repeated deliberately, “I said, won’t that be nice.” She didn’t look sleepy anymore. She had stepped out of her vagueness as out of a negligee, and put on something sharp and tight. “Won’t it, dear?”

“Yes, won’t it.”

From downstairs came the sound of Laura fooling with the piano, snatches of boogie-woogie, long sweet chords and low blue ones like ecstatic groans.

Her mother’s voice picked its way carefully among the notes. “She doesn’t play pretty little tunes anymore, just these modern pieces that keep reminding you of things or promising you things.” She added, without change of tone, “Well, if you don’t want to live with him anymore, why haven’t you got nerve enough to pack up and get out?”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you? If you’re thinking you have any obligations to Laura and me, you can forget it. I got along all right for years without Charley’s money. As for Laura, you’re not doing her any favor by staying here.”

She went over to the window and looked out, speaking over her shoulder, as if it were a matter of no importance: “There’s just one thing you can’t do. You can’t keep on living with Charles and making a cuckold out of him. He won’t like it when he finds out. Men are pretty fussy on that point.”

She didn’t turn around to see the effect of her words. She seemed to be musing aloud in front of a picture.

“You know, Steve’s the kind of man I understand better than you do, though in my day, we had a different name for them — lady-killers.”

“You can’t tell me a thing about...”

“Yes, I can. I’ve known quite a few of them. Steve’s a little different, he’s a cut above the rest of them, but he shares the same weakness. He can’t help chasing skirts, and the more inaccessible the skirt, the better the chase. And then what happens when the chase is over, you should know. It’s happened to you before. You got left. He walked out on you.”

She turned. There was no pity or censure in her face, it was as immovable as a fact.

“I didn’t say a word to you the first time. You were so much in love with him, it wouldn’t have done any good. Besides, you’ve always had to learn the hardest way. You could never know how high a cliff was until you fell off and broke a few bones. But, do you know, I used to nearly go crazy lying up in bed listening to that darned couch creak.”

Martha averted her face, as humiliated as if she’d been told that every scene on the couch had had a voyeur.

“I used to have to bite my tongue to keep from saying anything, Martha. Sometimes I prayed that you’d come out of it all right, and sometimes I even planned what I’d do if you had a baby. I would have taken it as my own.”

“Why tell me this now?” Martha said harshly.

“Because your life isn’t entirely your own anymore. You signed a bit of it over to Charley when you took his name.” She gave a dry little smile. “And the couch still creaks. You’ve fooled nobody — except Charles.”

Except Charles. The words brought Charles’s face to Martha’s mind. Charles was not smiling or sarcastic. He looked lost and helpless, and his eyes were strained as if he were trying hard to make out what everyone else saw very distinctly.

“I can’t help it,” she said. “I went out to tell him, to ask him for a divorce, and then I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t. He depends on me so much.”

“You may just think that because you depend on him so much.”

“Me depend on Charles?”

“Yes, I think you do. You may go prancing off across the lawn, thumbing your nose at the world for love, but you wouldn’t be so blithe about it if Charley wasn’t in the background, Charley and everything he stands for. You’re far too realistic to deny that.” She paused, frowning. “I wish Charley would push you around a little bit,” she said seriously. “I feel you’re the kind of woman who gets along best when a great many demands are made on you. Great demands, I mean, like having to go out and work all day and coming home at night to a husband who’s capable of slapping you around and a houseful of wet babies and dirt.”

“You’re making quite a few unpleasant remarks about me today.”

“That wasn’t unpleasant. I consider it a compliment.”

“Thanks. If you’re finished, I’ll go now.”

“I won’t ask you where.”

“You don’t have to, I’ll tell you. I’m going over to see Steve.”

“Give him my regards,” her mother said blandly. “In spite of what I’ve said about him, I’ve always been fond of Steve. I hoped for quite a while that he’d marry you. Is he going to, this time?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose I should offer my congratulations, but I think it would be safer to reserve them.”

She departed abruptly, without waiting for a reply.

Martha thought, I should follow her and defend Steve. I should say something in his favor. But for the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything to say in his favor. She felt only the old, implacable resentment: he walked out on me, he jilted me.

She went into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub full force. The roar drowned out for a moment the echo of her mother’s words.

She undressed quickly and got into the tub. The little waves reminded her of Charles and how blue and cold his skin had looked when he came out of the lake. She saw her own skin, pink with health and the heat of the water, and she thought, he shouldn’t go swimming until he’s better. I should have made him promise.

She crossed the lawn, pursued by the eyes of the windows and the melancholy tongue of the piano.

When she reached the apartment she walked in without knocking. Steve was making his bed. He finished tucking in the corners before he turned and came over to her.

“Well?” He put his hands on her shoulders, as if ready to shake her. “What did he say?”

“I... I didn’t ask him. He was in swimming.”

“I see. He must be a hell of a strong swimmer. You’ve been away six hours.”

“I mean, at first he was swimming. He shouldn’t have been, he’s not well enough, so I had to stop him.”

“And then?”

She swallowed. “Then we had some lunch and I came home.”

“Very jolly. Did the lunch give him hives?”

“Charles can’t help getting hives,” she said curtly. “It’s nothing to laugh about.”

He dropped his hands as suddenly as if she’d slapped them away. “You sound like a mother protecting her young. Don’t you think Charles is old enough to have graduated from the growing-boy class?”

“Let’s not quarrel... Steve, kiss me, will you?”

“I don’t want to quarrel and I don’t want to kiss you, either. I just want to know where I’m at. What’s come over you since last night?”

She lowered her eyes. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? Remember how you acted last night? You were happy, contented, you didn’t care what anyone thought, you even felt respectable, you said. The happy adulterer. Well” — he eyed her grimly — “you don’t look so goddamn happy to me. Has anybody been talking to you?”

“My mother. She knows about us.”

“And she doesn’t approve, of course.”

“No.”

“Naturally. I haven’t got as much money as Charles. I can’t give her or the kid or you any security. All I can offer is a little excitement and I’m afraid she’s a shade too old for the kind of excitement I can provide.”

“She believes,” Martha said cautiously, “that even if I divorce Charles, you won’t marry me, you’ll be tired of me by that time.”

“And you believe it, too?”

“I don’t know.”

“The fact is,” he said after a deliberate pause, “that I’m pretty tired of you already. I have to think about you too much. That makes me tired. Which reminds me, do you mind if I finish making my bed?”

He went back to the bed, threw on another blanket and began tucking it in at the sides.

“You haven’t enough of the tart in you,” he said as he worked. “You can go to bed with a tart and then forget all about her. You can turn over and go to sleep, providing you’ve got a padlock on your wallet.”

He finished the bed and pushed it back into the closet. She noticed that he had cleaned the whole room; the chairs had been dusted and the ashtrays washed and he had polished his shoes. He had even tried to press his own pants — the new crease didn’t quite coincide with the old one, and through the open door of the kitchen she could see the ironing board that he’d forgotten to fold away.

“Steve,” she said. “Steve, I wish... I wish...”

“Let’s get out of here. I need a drink.” He buttoned his coat and ran his hand over his hair to smooth it. “Coming?”

She hesitated. “Where can we go?”

“We have a couple of hundred bars to choose from. We can go to one, or we can go to them all, if you like.”

He opened the door for her but she continued to stand there.

“Come on,” he said, “and I’ll show you some real tarts so you’ll understand the difference.”

She touched his coat sleeve timidly, as if she were about to make an appeal. But she didn’t make it; he had moved away from her with a trace of impatience and was halfway down the steps before she caught up with him.

“Aren’t you forgetting your manners?”

“Look,” he said. “Let’s just pretend for once that you’re not the great lady you really are, you’re just an ordinary girl. And I’m an ordinary guy, see? — and we’re going out together. We haven’t much money, so we walk up to Jane Street to catch a bus. You’re sure riding a bus won’t be too much for your delicate constitution?”

“You don’t have to be so sarcastic. I’ve ridden on lots of buses with you before.”

“B.C. Before Charles. By the way, you don’t have to be afraid any of Charley’s friends will see you. They don’t ride buses, except maybe once a year, to keep in touch with the common man.”

“I’m sick of talking about Charles,” she cried. “And I’m sick of talking about buses!”

He wagged his finger at her. “Tut, tut. If you’re going to lose your temper, we’ll talk about trains.”

She began to walk down the driveway toward the road with swift angry strides. He kept up with her effortlessly.

“I adore trains,” he said. “Don’t you?”

She tossed her head in reply.

“When I was a boy — and a charming little chap I was, too — I used to call them choo-choos. Pretty damn original of me, eh?”

They reached the road and she turned left without slackening her pace. He stood still and talked to her retreating back.

“Matter of fact, H. L. Mencken gives me credit for the word. Choo-choo, an onomatopoetic disyllable coined by little Steve Ferris, aged one year, three months and six days. Incidentally, you’re going in the wrong direction.”

She stopped and came slowly back to where he was standing.

“You make me furious,” she said. “You...”

“I hope to God so.” He looked at her somberly. “Any reaction is better than no reaction.”