(1961) The Chapman Report (29 page)

Dr. Chapman pressed on. He shortened his questions, to save time, but conversely her answers became longer. To keep within the allotted schedule, he combined questions. Her answers grew even longer. This was not unfamiliar to Dr. Chapman. A great number of women, not ordinarily verbose, became so in the inter

views-as defense against their habits, as camouflage for their embarrassment and shyness.

Questions and answers emerged from premarital intimacy into marital coitus. Mrs. Harnish’s replies were more thoughtful now, and gradually more concise. Mrs. Harnish still offered herself to cohabitation twice a week. Petting and play were disposed of in a minute or two. The position favored, as in a quarter of all cases, was side by side. Mr. Harnish was valuable to Mrs. Hamish for never • more than three minutes, but he gallantly accommodated her afterward. Mrs. Harnish insisted that she found relations with Mr. Harnish pleasurable, although Dr. Chapman perceived that a better word may have been endurable.

“Mrs. Harnish, when you make love with your husband, are you partially clothed or in the nude?”

“Well, not all nude.”

“You are either nude or not nude.” Dr. Chapman tried to keep the asperity out of his tone.

“I wear a nightgown.”

“Do you remove it?”

“No.”

“Then you are partially clothed.” Dr. Chapman filled in his Solresol symbol, then resumed. “At what time of the day do you usually make love-morning, afternoon, evening, night?”

“At bedtime.”

“When is that?”

“Sometime after ten.”

“That would be night.”

Dr. Chapman made his note and recommenced his questioning. As they went on, he detected that Mrs. Harnish’s voice was lower, her accent more uncertain, and her replies considerably curtailed. They reached the world of extramarital coitus, and there Mrs. Harnish had never visited.

“Well now, that brings us to the final question of this series. You have never engaged in an extramarital relationship. Do you feel yourself capable of doing so in the future? Please answer-yes or maybe or no.”

“No.”

Dr. Chapman stared at the screen. A hunter on the veldt could smell the animal, feel the danger in his bones. It was an instinct born of a thousand safaris.

He tried the question another way. “You can’t conceive of committing infidelity, you say. Do you ever think about it at all-merely think about it?”

“I told you no, Doctor.”

“Have you ever, while petting or performing the sex act with your husband, wished or dreamed that he was another man? I mean, either a specific man you have known or met or just another man in general?”

“I have no such wishes or dreams, Doctor.”

Still the scent, the rustle in the bush, but now he lowered his rifle. The over-vigor of her replies could denote distaste and shock, as well as defensiveness. He weighed the possibilities, scanning her questionnaire as he did so, and finally concluded that this young woman, an intelligent young woman, knew her mind and would keep her matrimonial bargain. “Very well, Mrs. Harnish. Let’s go on.”

It was not a day for the beach or for dispelling gloom. Teresa knew this as she raced the convertible over the Pacific Coast Highway toward Constable’s Cove. Here, the inky clouds seemed to hang nearer the choppy water, and the raw wind from the ocean stung and hurt. The highway ahead and the uninviting beach to the left littered with rocks and seaweed were desolate. These were the moors on a moonless night, gale swept, and this was the journey from Wuthering Heights to Thrushcross Grange. I know you, Ellis Bell, because this morning, I am you.

The interview was to have been a conversation piece, especially once that she knew Dr. Chapman himself was her interrogator. But this moment she felt less interested in what would make a conversation piece and what would not. Even her wonderful costume party, each woman requested to come-as-the-person-you-would-like-to-have-been-when-Dr.-Chapman-interviewed-you, failed to excite her. Since the party was on such short notice, she had decided to invite the guests by telephone. Half the calls had been made. She planned to make the remaining calls at noon, after the interview, but here it was noon, and she was driven to-no, driving to-the beach. Why? To think. About what? I don’t know. Meaning? Meaning, I don’t know. What did you most often think about, Ellis Bell?

In ten minutes, she was there. She gathered together her effects. After the interview, she had stopped by the house to change into Bermuda shorts, and then change again into the brief tennis

shorts she had worn in Balboa last year, and found her beige corduroy coat, blanket, and barely remembered to snatch up a book on the way out.

She trod the path down to Constable’s Cove, spread the blanket on the hard sand, and sat down. It was cold, and she was glad for the corduroy jacket. She had not inspected the surrounding beach yet, and now she did, and was not surprised when she saw the four of them, two against two, playing some kind of wildly athletic game of tag with a football.

For endless minutes, she held the open book in her lap, not even bothering to discover the title, and continuing frankly to observe their play or, rather, his play. And what came to mind were those irrelevant questions about love play and foreplay. Why would a man of Dr. Chapman’s stature waste time on such nonessentials? That is, if they were nonessentials. She supposed that he knew best. Inexplicably, it saddened her.

She looked off again. He was bigger than she had remembered. Possibly, it was because he was not now in those indecent trunks but wearing jersey sweat pants, full length, such as she had once seen the cadets wear when she had attended a track and field meet at the Point. He was bare from the waist up, and enormous.

She waited and waited, and at last the play shifted nearer, and, like the first time, he came plowing through the sand toward her, glancing over his shoulder, with the football spiraling high in the air toward him. At once, she saw that the ball would overshoot him and descend upon her. As ball and man loomed, she screamed a warning, ducked low, covering her eyes. She heard the plop of the ball in the sand, and the skidding leather, and realized that she was still intact. She opened her eyes.

He was standing over her, grinning down at her, wheezing hard. “Sorry, lady.”

The lady made her feel shamefully old, and she sat up, her chest out and corduroy jacket open. He was boyish and young, but not that young, and his square face was Slav and unshaved. Six feet four, she decided.

“That Jackie’s got lotta speed but no control. We’ll watch out next time.”

“It’s all right.” She could not think of a single clever thing to say. Then she added: “I wasn’t scared.”

He strode off to the football and picked it up with one massive hand. He half turned. “Won’t happen again.”

“I don’t mind,” she said quickly. “It’s fun watching. Is it football?”

“Touch ball. Keeps you in trim.” He looked at her legs indifferently. “Ain’t you cold like that?”

“A little. I thought the sun might come out.”

“Naw, not today. Well-” he threw a salute-“don’t take any wooden nickels.”

He was about to leave. Some desperation in her reached to hold him. “Do you-are you a real football player?”

He waited. “Pro ball. Rams. Still a second-stringer, but watch my smoke this year.”

“I’d like to. What name should I watch for?”

“Ed Krasowski,” he said. “Right end.”

She smiled. “I’ll remember that.” She waited to tell him her name, but he did not inquire.

“S’long, lady.” He waded off through the sand, working his shoulders so that the supple muscles of his back rippled, and finally he heaved the ball toward his companions. In a moment, he had joined them. Apparently, he had said something funny, for now they all laughed.

She watched tensely. He was resuming the foreplay-dammit, no-the play; he was resuming the play. She shivered, and pulled her jacket tight, and continued to watch. After a while, the four of them tired of the sport and walked off, and it was then that Teresa got up and went home.

The clock on the wall, its long minute hand jumping forward with a loud tick every sixty seconds, read eleven minutes to six, and, at last, Naomi Shields began to recapture her earlier mood. She felt gay and reckless once more. She had come to the interview in the white sweater that showed off her figure so well (although, disappointingly, there was no one to appreciate her, except the thin-lipped wallflower in the hall) and the form-fitting jet black skirt, and fortified by four undiluted straight Scotches, prepared to prove to herself and the others that she was no different from any other woman in The Briars.

The silly cane and walnut screen had been an immediate annoyance. In her manic mood, which was exhibitionistic and seductive, she had wanted to be admired openly and had looked forward to observing her male interviewer’s face as she shocked and excited him, and reduced him finally to sexual suppliant. These feelings in Naomi were especially heightened when she heard Paul Radford’s voice, which she decided was sexy and promising.

But his opening questions had made her thoughtful and dampened her disposition. She did not like telling him that she was already thirty-one, and that she had been brought up in strict Catholicism, against which she had revolted, and that she had not even finished high school. And then, worse, all those dreary details, distasteful even, of her pre-adolescent and adolescent years. Why was anyone ever that young? When she read biographies or long novels, or at least when she used to, she had always made it a point to skip the early sections about growing up. Now, thank God, her own early years were behind her, and the man had announced that they would discuss premarital coitus. Why coitus, after all that pompous prattle about frankness and bringing it into the open? Why not plain fucking? That’s what it was, anyway. That’s what it was, and she could tell them. My God, she was drunk.

She realized that an unlighted cigarette was dangling from her lips. She fumbled for a match, and then became aware of the sexy voice addressing her again. She applied the light to her cigarette, coughed, shook the match out, and dropped it to the floor. She narrowed her eyes and tried to listen.

“… that period from puberty to marriage. Did you ever engage in premarital coitus?”

“I certainly did.”

“How many partners did you have-one? two to ten? eleven to twenty-five? or more?”

“More.”

“Can you estimate how many?”

“It’s hard to remember.”

“Maybe I can help. After puberty, at what age did you first engage in love-making?”

“Thirteen-no, fourteen-I was just fourteen.”

“And the last time, before you were married?”

“The week before the wedding.” She remembered. She had wanted satin pumps for the wedding. The shoe clerk with the Hapsburg jaw. He wouldn’t take his hand off her leg. Should she explain? “I had to,” she said. “My husband wouldn’t until it was official.”

“You were twenty-five then?”

“Just about.”

“That leaves eleven premarital years-“

“About fifty,” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“About fifty men. Mostly after I was twenty-one.” She smiled, trying to picture his face behind the screen, and blew a smoke ring and felt superior.

There was a momentary silence. Then Paul spoke again. “In these affairs-I must ask this-did you accept favors?”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Well, cash gifts-“

“Hey now! Wait a minute, mister. If you’re inferring that I was a prostitute-“

“I’m inferring nothing. I’m merely inquiring for the record.”

“Well, you put this in your little black book. And get it right. Nobody ever touched me unless I wanted it, and I did it for love-do you understand?-because I wanted to, and no other reason.”

“Of course. Please don’t misunderstand-“

“See that you don’t misunderstand.”

“Shall we go on?”

She felt angry and dizzy, and glared at the screen. The nerve of the man.

“Where did these affairs usually take place?” Paul asked.

“Everywhere. Who remembers?”

“But most often?”

“Wherever I lived. I’ve been on my own since I was a kid.”

“Did you achieve satisfaction on any of these occasions?”

“What’s your guess?”

His guess was negative, but her answer was an insistent affirmative. Her capabilities, Naomi argued indignantly, were the match of any man alive.

There were several more questions, and then Paul stated that they would next cover the marital relationship. With trembling hand, Naomi lighted a fresh cigarette off the stub of the old, and waited.

“You were married only once?”

“Thank God.”

“For how long?”

“Six years.”

“Are you divorced?”

“Almost three years ago.”

“Have you had any relations with your former husband since?”

“I haven’t even seen him.”

Paul began to probe her life with her husband. Her replies to his inquiries were alternatingly flippant and hostile.

Once, having made some slighting remark about her husband, she seemed to regret it and was anxious to amend her pronouncement. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said, remembering the better times and hating to be harsh and spoil her best memories. “He was sweet. He wasn’t so bad as I’ve made out. We had our moments.”

Naomi’s humor returned gradually in the next ten minutes, as Paul continued to examine her married life. By the time he reached the subject of extramarital relationships, she was in the best of spirits. The dizziness had departed, and she was beginning to feel at ease, except for the lack of a drink.

“You were married six years,” said Paul. “Did you ever engage in extramarital petting-petting only?”

“Most women do. I’m no different.”

“Can you recount-“

She did so, lustily.

When she was finished, Paul inquired about her actual affairs. “Did you have any with male partners other than your husband?”

This had been the beginning of the trouble. “Look,” she said suddenly, “maybe I can save us both time. I’ll tell you straight out, and we can get it over with. He was a great guy. I mean it. But he couldn’t satisfy me. I just wasn’t happy. Maybe I never will be. I meant to be faithful, and I tried-I really tried. But you’re not a woman. You don’t know what it’s like to need love and not have it, at least not have what you need. So I cheated. Not at all the first year. But I got nervous as a cat, and I was afraid I’d come apart. So I knew I had to do what I did. But I was careful. I didn’t want to spoil what we had. I really wanted him-but I wanted everyone else, too. Do you understand?”