Tony and Susan

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.

They drove through scrubby sandy woods. The flat middle land of the Cape, you could tell from the pale mist in the sky that the sea was near by. Paula and Merton talked. He saw Peter and Jenny trying not to be caught staring.

The house was in the woods a half mile from the bay. A dirt driveway with grass in the middle climbed up from the road. They gave him the same room he had occupied with Laura. From the window you could see over the tops of the trees to the bay dazzling blind in the afternoon sun beyond the line of dunes. The room smelled of pine, the floors were gritty with sand.

They went to the beach, deserted in the late afternoon. A sharp breeze blew off the bay from the west, and it was chilly. In their bathing suits Peter and Jenny put their sweaters on. “Aren’t you going swimming?” Tony Hastings said with effort.

“Too cold!” Jenny said. Peter had a frisbee, and he and Jenny tossed it back and forth, to avoid having to talk to him. They didn’t know what to say because they were afraid to ask about the big thing they knew about him. The wind chopped up a ragged surf. The beach showed remains left by the crowd that had been there, the big rusted trash can was full with papers and plastic food cartons blowing out of the top. A large seagull walked on the sand, gawky with orange legs, an evil eye, a vicious beak. Another came down out of the sky and hung in place on the wind two feet above the sand with great motionless wings, looking things over. Remnants of a sandwich. Empty egg carton. Someone’s sweater, half buried in the sand.

“I’m shivering to death, let’s go home,” Peter said.

Plenty of animated conversation at dinner that night. Tony Hastings knew he should take part if he could keep track of what it was about. Later he thought, I’m a dead log, I should try harder, I mustn’t forget who I am.

In the morning he slashed off his mustache, which disgusted him. The beach was bright. The air was fresh, the bay green and calm, the water warm, and the children swam long. He swam with them for a while, and wondered if it was doing him good. He noticed a query on Jenny’s face as she came up out of the water, bubbles in her face and soggy hair, looking at him and diving away. He knew what she was thinking. She was remembering Aunt Laura the underwater swimmer who used to prowl like a submarine among the surface waders, nibbling and dunking. Or water cavalry with Uncle Tony and Aunt Laura. He thought, if they ask, I’ll play horse, but no one asked.

Since he felt little pleasure in either water or land, he came out soon and sat on a towel. When the children returned, he made an effort. “Would you like to walk to the inlet?” he said. It was hard to ask questions like that, for words sat on his chest like lead.

They walked toward the inlet. Now (he knew) they were thinking of last year’s walk, Aunt Laura looking for shells and pebbles, Uncle Tony identifying shore birds, Helen digging out the little holes in the wet sand, wondering what was down there, a clam, a crab? Silently he defended his pain, refusing to care about pretty stones or delicate crab shells, indifferent to sand dollars. He did not want to distinguish gulls from terns. The sand was thick around his feet. The children walked quietly. Then Peter muttered something to Jenny. She ran ahead and he threw the frisbee to her. They broke loose, circling with the frisbee the rest of the way, while he marched on.

He spent two weeks at the Cape, trying to be depressed without being uncongenial. Paula said, “Tony, you have every right to be depressed.” She suggested he go to a psychiatrist when he got back.

When he got home two weeks later, arriving in the empty house alone in the afternoon, this house absolutely and only his own from now on, he found a letter waiting from Grant Center.

Thought you would like to know a fingerprint on your car matches one found in the trailer. Plus, another on your car has been identified as belonging to Steven Adams formerly of Los Angeles. He has a record in California, stolen car, with acquittal on a rape charge. Enclosed please find a picture, face and profile, of said Adams and would appreciate if you can identify him as any of the people who attacked you and your wife. An A.P.B. has been sent out for him.

No one has responded to our call for witnesses.

Looking forward to hearing from you promptly, will let you know further developments.

Robert G. Andes

The picture trembled. Mug shot, front and side, a gaunt man with long black hair, full black beard like a prophet. Tony Hastings stared, trying to see into it. Who? Crooked nose, sad eyes. Not Ray, not Turk. He tried to remember, warding off the keen disappointment, Lou’s beard, Lou’s hair? Lou’s beard was not so long, his hair different, though Tony could not remember how, and the eyes in the picture flashed nothing. This was a picture of no one he had ever seen. He tried to imagine Ray with a beard, but the picture made it hard to remember what Ray looked like without one.

The letter stirred motion in him, a desire to punish. He thought, What difference does it make whether they catch them or not, yet at night he had murderous thoughts. They made him bite his lips and bang his fist on the sheet. But he forgot to answer the letter, and after a few days he got a telephone call from Bobby Andes. He heard the voice weakly, a poor connection.

“Did you get my letter?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“What?”

“Do you recognize the face?”

“No.”

“No what?”

“I don’t recognize it.”

“Aw shit, man.”

“I’m sorry.”

“God damn it, man. This is the guy whose fingerprints are on your car. What do you mean, you don’t recognize it?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Ah hell.”

Depressed though he was, Tony Hastings did what was necessary to stay alive. He cooked his breakfast and made sandwiches for lunch. He went to cheap restaurants for dinner. Sometimes when he felt less apathetic than usual he cooked his own. He went to his office, but it was hard to keep his mind on his work and he came home early. At night he tried to read but he could not concentrate, and he spent most of the time watching television. He could not concentrate on that either and usually did not know what he was seeing. Once a week Mrs. Fleischer came to clean and do the laundry. In between, the house got messy, newspapers and books and dirty dishes. He was impatient for the summer to end so he could resume teaching, though he was not eager to teach.

One evening, having decided it was time to get ready for his fall classes, he went to his study and tried to think where to start. But his thought went in other directions. He wanted to perform a ceremony, but he could think of none that would do. He went to the window, but all he could see was his reflection in the glass. A person outside could see in better than he could see out. He turned off all the lights, so that the house was completely dark. Why am I doing this? he asked. The dim illumination from outside, from the streetlamps and the neighbors’ houses and the glow in the night sky, came in through the windows and cast patches and shadows on the walls. He went to the side window looking up at Mr. Husserl’s house all lit up, and around to the other windows, the black night over the bushes and choked gardens. He walked around the darkened house from room to room, looking at the night outside and the patterns it made inside.

Then he went out. He walked up the street to the shops. He looked in the windows at people in the restaurants, the open stores, Walgreen’s, Stu’s Deli, the lighted windows of the closed stores, the hardware store, the bookstore. He went into the park down a slope under huge trees, so dark he had to hold his hand in front of his face against invisible branches. Why have I come out here? he asked.

They must have thought of it while fixing the tire. When they went over to Ray’s car and had a conference. Let’s take them to the trailer, have a ball. What about him? Shit guys, we gotta get rid of him. Okay, here’s what we do. Separate em. Him in one car, the dames in the other. Him you take, Lou. It’s dangerous, man. Shit boy, everything’s dangerous.

He tried to remember, the iron which they used to change his tire. Was it lying on the ground when they finished? He could have picked it up. With the tire iron in his hand he could have prevented Ray and Turk from getting into his car. He could have held it in front of him with two hands. If he had to, he could have swung it and hit Ray on the head.

In the park he lost the path. He saw a light through the lacework of the trees and used it to guide him back to the sidewalk. The light was a sign in a beauty shop, closed for the night. He was trembling, and his face was scratched.

In the darkened house he sat looking out. Take me back, he said. Start over, undo this thing. Change one moment, that’s all I ask, then let history take its course. Stop me at the trailer where I did not stop. Stand me by the car door to fight Ray and Turk, give me that, no more, just one link in the logical chain. Pick up the Bangor hitchhiker, listen to the sweetness of my daughter for the man with the flowing beard, idiot father.

The house was an empty tank full of grief. Their empty ghosts floated everywhere they were not. Not the box of jewelry left open on the dresser. Neither the drawers nor the closets where her dresses hang, where he fingered their textures. He wrapped her heavy gray sweater around his head. Sentimental and pious, he watered the hanging plants she had left in the vestibule. Pick up the blue and white china. Not using the Hitchcock chairs, nor the electric can opener in the kitchen. Nor typing a letter at her old rolltop desk in what she does not call the sewing room though she does no sewing there. Nor her easel, her crazy palette, unframed canvases against the studio wall.

How detached are her two big paintings in the living room, the one all pale blue like an early morning misty seascape, the other hues of pink and orange, serene and constant, ignorant of future force and rape and hammer. Helen’s stupid stuffed panda, symbol of sentimentality with calculated big glass eyes and oversized head, does to him what it was made to do where it sits on the bed in the room full of the house that Jack built.

In the morning he waited to hear the sound of water in the bathroom. He expected to hear the screen door and the footsteps on the walk starting off to school. He wanted to say good bye when he left the house but she must have gone upstairs. When he came back in the afternoon, she would be painting in her studio, he would listen at the foot of the stairs. The afternoon advanced, he was waiting to hear the other one come busting through the screen door. After dinner he would wait for her so they could go for their walk.

He plotted these rediscoveries of absence so they would come as pulses of surprise, to maintain the steady flow of grief. They enabled him to realize it again, over and over. He would deliberately forget and then restore the order in which things happened. The strange oblongs covered by white cloth in the church were later than the canvas cocoons carried out of the bushes, which were later than the mannequins in the bushes. These came after they were driven off in the car in the night, which was later than anything that ever happened in this house. Nothing in this house was more recent than what happened by the road, nothing is newer or fresher than their death. The last you ever saw them, Tony Hastings told himself with astonishment, would always be their scared faces in the car driving down the road.

He talked it over with her. He said, The worst moment was when Ray and Turk forced themselves into the car with you. That was pretty bad, she agreed. No, he corrected himself, the worst was when I first saw something in the bushes and realized it was you. She smiled. He said, I wish you could tell me your part of it. So do I, she said.

The other one clumping down the stairs at night, two at a time, thump crash at the bottom, letting the screen door slam. He asked, what should I do with her things, the stuffed animals, the china horses, I need your advice. I know, she said.