Authors: Belva Plain
“I’m hot,” Jane said.
“But you were too cold just a little while ago, and it’s not even warm in here.”
“I need to take off my jacket.”
She was sweating. When she began to cry, “My tummy hurts, my tummy hurts,” Eve knew.
“Lie down on the bench,” she commanded, “and close your eyes.”
Once, years ago, on a sailboat on the lake at home, she had been miserably sick. Afterward, the family joked about seasickness and the death wish. But it wasn’t laughable when you were having it.
The copilot, hearing the cries, stepped down from the front to offer advice. “A chicken sandwich is a big help. I keep a few handy. How about it, kid? A nice chicken sandwich?”
“No!” roared Jane.
“Really, a chicken sandwich will taste good. Better eat.”
An instant later, Jane’s stomach emptied itself, as the contents of the morning’s breakfast erupted onto her jacket, Eve’s sweater, and the well-scrubbed floor.
“Oh, dear,” Eve wailed, concerned about Jane and embarrassed about the floor. “Leave it, please. If you’ll get me a pail or something, I’ll clean it up in a minute. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. The kid can’t help it. Just take care of her and never mind the floor.”
Now Jane wailed, “I’m sick. I want my daddy. I want Lore.”
“I’m here. Don’t cry, honey. I know you feel awful, but you’ll be better if you lie down and stay quiet.”
“I hate this boat. I want to get off.”
“How much farther are we going?” Eve asked.
“Just up and down along the shore, north and south. Rambling around, looking for fish. A couple of folks upstairs have been hauling in some good ones.”
“What I really meant was, how much longer do we stay out?”
“Supposed to dock around two. That’s the time you paid for.”
It was only half-past ten and she supposed, or rather hoped, that there would be no more vomiting. There was nothing to do but endure.
Half an hour later, after Jane had finally lain down to sleep, Tom came upon Eve curled over her knees and trembling with cold. Having nothing to do but read, she had been occupying herself with a mental translation of Babar, first into German and then back into its original French.
“What’s going on here?” he cried. And after she told him, “We shouldn’t have brought her.”
“I know that,” Eve said simply, as the boat
climbed a dark green mountain and slid like a terrifying avalanche down the other side.
Jane woke up, mumbling, “I want Lore. I do. I do.”
“I thought she was so attached to you,” Tom said.
“She is. But I’ve only been with her during vacations. She’s been with Lore every day of her life.”
“I want to go home. I hate this boat,” Jane shrieked.
Tom shook his head. “She hates too many things,” he said.
“Tom, you can’t expect her to be sunny all the time. Nobody else is. And she’s been under a lot of stress. And—” Eve stopped. They were talking about Jane as if she weren’t there hearing, and possibly understanding, what they were saying.
“It’s a raw day, starting to rain.” And shaking himself as he spoke, Tom scattered drops from his jacket.
“Does that mean we go back?”
“Not unless everybody wants to, or a real storm comes up.”
“What if we ask them to let us go back?” Eve asked.
“Eve, these people have paid for five expensive hours. I can’t ask them.”
“I would pay for the lost time.”
“That’s ridiculous. Let Jane go to sleep again. Put on my jacket and come up with me.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous. You can’t stand outside in this weather without a jacket. Take it.”
“No, you take it.”
Why were they having this absurd argument? But she knew quite well why.…
Tom left a troubled stillness behind him. His jacket lay where he had flung it. Jane had stopped her plaints to stare up at Eve as though she were making a study of her face.
“Tom’s angry,” Jane said.
She did not answer, thinking: Well, if he isn’t angry exactly, he’s certainly stubborn. But then, so am I. Her arms were almost blue with cold, yet she refused to wear his jacket. If he wanted to prove something—prove what?—she did, too.
She got up, went forward, and handing the jacket to the obliging copilot, asked him whether he would please go up and give it to Tom. “He forgot it,” she said.
After that she lay down, holding Jane close for warmth. They were still lying there, Jane asleep and Eve too cold and agitated for sleep, when people came stamping down into the cabin, lamenting the storm. A heavy rain was falling, and the boat was turning homeward.
“Well, it wasn’t much of a day,” Tom said, “especially for you.”
“I haven’t said so,” she answered stiffly.
“You don’t need to, with that glum expression. I see you can be as stubborn as I can.”
“Every bit as much.”
So they went home, took hot showers, and still barely speaking, ate the sandwiches that were to have been their jolly lunch on the boat. In midafternoon when the rain stopped, Eve and Jane went to the beach on a hunt for shells, while Tom got out his easel.
He had been working for the last two weekends on a seascape. The subject was a difficult one: Surf advanced in strong, level parallels toward a rocky promontory and broke up into a dazzle of spray; it all happened in twilight. He chooses difficulties, Eve thought now. That’s something I’m just learning about him. This morning’s weather, the Guatemala jungle, and now this that it would take a Turner to do well, are each a challenge. What is he trying to prove? she wondered with some impatience.
He was still working at the easel when she returned with Jane. And knowing that he wanted to be undisturbed, surely a reasonable request, she went inside to let Jane help her make some cupcakes for their dinner.
“We’ll have a party,” Jane said. “Cupcakes are for a party, and I’ll wear my party dress.”
The dress had been brought along for the weekend because Eve had thought they might go out to dinner. Tom had mentioned “the best seafood restaurant within fifty miles,” but then he had said nothing more about going. Well, why not wear her party dress?
Eve’s thoughts were making her heart beat faster. They must speak. This chilly sulk could not be allowed to go on.
She was waiting for him when, after Jane had gone to bed, he brought his painting indoors. “We need to talk,” she said. “What have we been doing since ten o’clock this morning? We’ve wasted almost twelve hours of our lives being nasty.”
She had not meant to give way, and did keep her voice firm, but her eyes teared.
“I could cry myself,” he said unexpectedly, “cry with shame. All afternoon while I was working at this thing, I’ve been wanting to say something to you, but I saw how you were, and I didn’t know how to start. A paltry excuse, I know.” He put his arms around her. “I apologize. Okay? Let’s forget the whole stupid business.”
They would forget it, of course. It was their first fight, if you could even call it a fight. And she was about to say, “We need to straighten out our plans and be definite,” when he spoke first.
“I guess I’ve been cranky because I’m not used to having a child around. I know it’s nobody’s fault, and I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t in the best humor, either,” Eve admitted.
“She’s a cute little kid when she behaves herself.”
“I think she’s starting to feel secure. She’s been much better lately.”
“Okay. Shall we call it a day?”
This was probably not the best moment, after all, in which to get down to business. “A day,” she said.
“I was really talking about bed.”
She laughed. “At this hour?”
“Why not? At any hour. You and I, at any hour, Eve.”
T
HE
body, the two bodies, so marvelously fitting, blended, becoming one, soared, returned into the soft night, and floated away to rest. Only much later as she fell toward sleep did Eve recall that somewhere there had been a worry, a lurking, vague thing, dark in a corner. But she could not think of what it was.…
She was jolted awake into daylight. From the outer room came voices, a man’s rumble and a child’s frenzy. She jumped out of bed, caught a robe, and ran.
They were standing in front of Tom’s painting, Tom towering over the crying child. Then she saw what had happened. In the forefront of the picture where he had labored to create an iridescent spray, a large red blob had been superimposed. The paint was still wet.
“It’s a boat,” Jane cried. “I only wanted to make it pretty.”
Tom looked at Eve, at the ruin, and back at Eve. Apparently, he had run out of words. There are times when you have suffered such a beastly assault
that you do run out of words. Yet for some implausible reason, Eve felt an impulse to laugh.
Still, she spoke severely. “Jane, you’ve spoiled Tom’s picture.”
“I didn’t spoil it, Eve! I fixed it. There was no boat, and it needed a boat.” The foot stamped, and the tears poured.
Oh, damn. Bright Sunday morning, and here we are again.
“The picture doesn’t belong to you, Jane. How would you like it if somebody marked up your new Babar book?”
“That’s different, Eve!”
“No, it isn’t. People’s things belong to them, and we don’t touch other people’s things. You do know that.”
“Words, words,” Tom said. “You’re wasting your breath.”
“What else would you have me do?”
“I know what I’d do.”
“I can imagine. And what would that sort of thing accomplish? Come here, Jane. Let me wipe your nose. Then tell Tom you’re very, very sorry, and you’ll never do anything like that anymore.”
“No. He’s mean. He’s very, very mean.”
“Tom’s never mean. His feelings are hurt because you spoiled his work. Please say you’re sorry, and he’ll feel better.”
“Not necessarily,” Tom muttered. “A nuisance, that’s what.”
“I’m not a nuisance,” Jane roared.
“I know you didn’t bargain for this,” Eve said, “but what can I do?”
“You can make some other arrangements for her.”
Now Jane was scrutinizing first one, then the other, as she had done at the table last night. You wouldn’t think that a child’s eyes could reveal such canny appraisal. She is figuring out, Eve thought, what is going on between Tom and me.
And Jane said, “Tom doesn’t like me.”
“Of course he likes you.”
“He doesn’t, Eve.”
“Well, let’s not argue about it this minute. You’re still in your pajamas. Go on and dress yourself. I’ll come in if you need help.”
“May I wear my party dress again?”
“Yes, if you want to.”
Tom was slashing red paint all over his twilit ocean. She followed him outdoors to the trash can, where he tossed the picture away. The lid clanged shut.
“I’m sorry,” she said desperately, “I really am, Tom.”
“She’s some little treasure. A joy to have around.”
“She really is, Tom. She’s fundamentally very good. You should hear Mrs. Dodge talk about her. She just has her moments and this was a bad one.”
“Eve, what are you going to do with her? You’ve got to get rid of her.”
“Get rid of her? You can’t mean that.”
“I most certainly can, and for your own good.”
“My
good? What about hers? She never knew her mother and has lost her father. She can’t understand death, she feels that Daddy has simply abandoned her, and now you want me to abandon her, too?”
“I said you have to think of your own good sometimes.”
“I don’t know you when you talk like this, Tom.”
How was it possible after last night that they could be standing here face-to-face like adversaries? Or like two dogs, she thought roughly, preparing to fight.
“You’d think,” Tom said, “that I was telling you to leave her on somebody’s doorstep. What I meant is, find a top-notch boarding school for her. I know they’re expensive, but I can pay. I’ll be glad to. And you and I will go off to our dig as we planned.”
“Tom, let’s get this straight. I’m not going to go out of the country and leave a six-year-old among strangers, even if there is such a thing as a boarding school for children her age, which I doubt.”
“So that’s it. You weren’t intending to go with me at all. After two years’ worth of plans, you were simply going to walk away.”
“I intended to be with you here, to get a job. I never intended to ‘walk away’!”
“That’s not how I understood it.”
“The trouble is that neither of us thought to question the other. We’re both at fault. We just assumed.” She was protesting, pleading and trembling.
Then she threw pride away. “You never said a word about marrying me, and being a family.”
“I thought you took it for granted.” He picked up a handful of pebbles from a potted cactus and threw them, one by one, over the fence. “The truth is, Eve, this baby business has thrown us all off course. She’s taken up all your time, or almost all of it.”
That was true. Or almost true. Yet she had to defend herself. “What would you have had me do? Thousands of mothers have to fit their jobs into child care or the other way around.”
Tom answered quietly, “But you are not her mother.”
“I am aware of that,” Eve said, tasting her own bitterness on her tongue.
When he stooped for another handful of pebbles, her patience broke. “Will you please stop doing that?” she cried. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“I’m not the one who’s driving you crazy, Eve. It’s this responsibility, for which you are entirely unprepared.”
That, too, was true. And she thought for the first time how different it would be now if she had inherited her fair share of the estate: Jane would stay on in their home with a first-class nurse, and Lore there after work every day to oversee things. Then she herself would go with Tom, and they would make long, frequent visits to Ivy. How different it would be.…
“Where are we?” Tom asked, shattering all the “if’s.”
“Eve,” Jane called, “the button came off my party shoe.”
“Where are we?” Tom repeated.
“I know where I am. I’m in a state of exhaustion. Maybe you should drive us home. Then you can have the rest of Sunday in peace.”
L
IFE
had been turned inside out, and she knew no way to right it. She felt completely alone. Women of her age, here on this campus, did not have enough experience to advise her; each one’s opinion would be based only upon her particular temperament. Several times she went to the telephone, thinking that Lore might be able to give counsel, but each time she withdrew her hand. For Lore knew nothing about loving a man. She was virginal. Confide in Mrs. Dodge, maybe? You could tell that she was a sensible woman. But no, in the last analysis, you had to make your own decisions.