Private House (21 page)

“My God, Mathilde.”

“I know. When I asked him about it, he said they weren't really trying to arrest him, they were going to kill him. The policeman he shot was trying to shoot him.” They'd reached the beach. The sand was so hot, they hopped. Mathilde said, “I wonder what really happened.”

“I'm sure he's telling the truth,” said Lorraine. “That's what it was like then. I'm not sure it's any different now.”

Mathilde considered this, and they walked on in silence.

Bailey had found them a good spot, not too far from the water, but away from other people, and he'd spread out the blanket he'd brought, bearing the faded image of Jane Fonda—which might have been appropriate to him politically except she was garbed as Barbarella. They set out their things—he said they'd be all right, at least on this section of the beach; but they should keep an eye on them. Then they waded into the water, together. But when it came thigh high, Lorraine waited for an easy wave, and launched herself into the face of it. At first she splashed a little in the choppy water, but as it grew deeper, she found her stroke.

“That lady can swim,” said Bailey.

“She must not go too far. Is there any danger?”

“I don't think so.” Bailey shielded his eyes with his hand, watching Lorraine. “Not here.”

“She likes you, she said.”

“I like her, too.”

“You must be careful what you say. I told you, she's religious.”

“Don't worry, she can look after herself.” He chuckled. “And she's still got a pretty good body.”

Mathilde slipped her fingers under the band of Bailey's swimsuit and extended her middle finger into the space between his buttocks. “No, this is a pretty good body. You are so tight there, you have a
great
ass. But you're right, she keeps in shape. We could share you. What do you think? You might like it. She is your age, as you keep pointing out.”

They were both still looking at Lorraine and Bailey kept his eyes that way. “I think you put your finger on the problem. She's
my age
.”

“This finger, you mean?” she said, wiggling. But then, quickly, “Bailey, I can't see her.”

“That's just the wave. There she is. There—”

“You should call her. She shouldn't be out that far, not by herself.”

“Don't worry. She'll be all right.”

But they were both watching intently now. The beach wasn't crowded by any means, but there were still a good many people about, swimming and sunbathing, with a number of children paddling in the shallows or horsing around farther out, and this made Mathilde all the more anxious, for she felt the separateness, the distance, that set each one apart, so that everyone was alone. But then she saw that Lorraine had turned on her back and was floating. She rose and rocked on the swells, which gradually began pushing her in. And then she rolled over and swam back to them. She'd certainly gone a long way out. When she touched bottom, and began wading, she was gasping and her breasts were heaving as she tried to catch her breath.

“Now that was a swim,” said Mathilde. “You went a long way.”

“It was lovely. I thought I heard you call. Did you shout?”

“No, but you must have been reading my mind!”

Lorraine rested a moment, hands on hips. Then she knocked her head with the heel of her hand to get water out of her ear. “I think I'll go in, and you can go to it.”

Mathilde was getting ready to dive in herself, but she called over her shoulder, “There's sun lotion in my bag if you want it!”

Lorraine trudged through the sand to their blanket. She sank down and rolled over on her back, propping herself up on her elbows. The sea rolled in. A child, somewhere, shrieked. Her whole front was flushed, rising and falling, sparkling beads of water skidding off her suit with every breath. Salt prickled on her skin and sand clung to her feet where they stuck over the blanket. Fury and frustration filled her, for now anxiety was rolling in a wave from her chest down to her middle, and then she felt empty. She closed her eyes, sinking into the
golden bath of the sun. In her mind she could hear Mathilde shouting to her. That's when she'd stopped. But she hadn't called, that's what she said. So it was all in her mind, after all. Yet it wasn't exactly that, the shout, that had made her afraid. It was when she'd
turned
, she thought, that the anxiety had started. When she'd
come back
. And she remembered the other day, it had been the same then. When she'd gone to the bank, she'd been all right until she'd started
back.
. . .

She looked up at the sky. It was dizzying. And below was the vast, endless stretch of the sea. It was from this vastness that she called up the anxiety, as though with a spell. It was always there, waiting. It was everywhere. It was part of the endlessness of it all, an aspect of infinity. It was the whole universe, fearfully pressing down. She could feel it now, starting. It had started in the water,
coming back
, but now it was stronger. She squeezed her eyes shut. It did no good. Oh God. Oh God.
You can't. You mustn't
. She opened her eyes. The world was beginning to break up into little pieces, she couldn't hold it together. She squinted past her feet and saw Bailey, and then Mathilde, bobbing in the swell. She wanted to call to them, Help! Help! She wanted to call to Mathilde. Had Mathilde called to her? she wondered again. But then she thought, You'll spoil everything for her, she's been so kind. Is that what you want to do? She closed her eyes. Was it some strange Freudian thing? She wanted Bailey. She didn't want Mathilde to have Bailey. But that was ridiculous and she didn't believe it for a moment. And then she thrust her hand into her bag and felt about until she found the pills Mathilde had bought from that strange Cuban woman. She sat up. She was going to take one but she didn't want anyone to know, so she drew her legs up, so no one could see. She pushed the lid off and took out one of the pills, a capsule, green and yellow, and put it in her mouth. She swallowed. It went down; but she had a bottle of water, and she twisted it open and
took a mouthful of water. She gasped. She could feel the pill in her throat and then it was gone. She put the pills and the bottle back in her bag and lay back.

She closed her eyes again. She could feel her heart beating, racing. Well, almost. Now she had the pill to worry about. What did it feel like? Did she feel anything at all? Perhaps she'd start giggling. A tranquilizer. Drugs. She'd done a certain amount of rock 'n' roll but not much drugs. Marijuana once or twice, to no great effect. Of course there was sex too. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. She wondered again, did this have something to do with Bailey? But it couldn't. It had started before. She liked Bailey, someone her own age, from her own . . . era, should one call it? She opened her eyes and found him in the water. He was floating on his back, not moving very energetically; he seemed content with that. Then Mathilde—had she been swimming under him?—bobbed up beside him. He was in good shape, she thought. Lean. She liked that, too. Really, it was time she started going back to the gym. She wasn't in too bad shape but nothing like him. And now it occurred to her that she would never want a man unless she wanted him that way. . . . She wouldn't want to live under the same roof with a man unless—

She wondered if this was the pill, taking effect. Or was it like a placebo? But she was definitely feeling calmer. She was sure now that an attack was not going to take place. Maybe it had just passed off. But it might have been the pill. But then she told herself to stop thinking about it and dug out her book, an old Elizabeth Bowen novel that wasn't as good as she remembered. She turned her body, to put the page in the shade, which meant she couldn't see the water. Twenty minutes later, her anxiety forgotten, she was surprised by a thumping of feet and a cold sprinkle on her back.

“Yikes! You two are like a pair of dogs!”

“Look at you,” said Mathilde, “you'll burn! You haven't put on any lotion!”

She dropped straight to her knees on the towel and pulled a plastic squeeze bottle of lotion out of her bag.

“Just a minute,” said Bailey, “this is a job for a man. Roll over, both of you.”

They did, not unwillingly. He knelt between them, one hand for each. Lorraine felt cold drops of lotion plopping onto her back. When he was finished, Mathilde did him, pinching his bottom gently when she was done. Finally they all stretched out, bright with oil, and Lorraine said, “We are like three zucchinis, about to be grilled.”

“I,” said Bailey, “am an eggplant.”

Mathilde said, “What is an eggplant?”

“An aubergine!” said Lorraine and they all laughed. After a time, Lorraine gave up on her book. Mathilde lay back, one arm thrown over her eyes. She could still feel Bailey's hands on her body, his touching. Lorraine's presence, her inclusion, only deepened her pleasure, not so much because it emphasized her proprietorship over Bailey but because it generalized it. Her desire spread out, everywhere, toward everyone, as though the weight of the sun was pressing her wrist against her eyes just as Bailey's sex would press into her soon. She opened one eye, peeping around the bone of her wrist. Did Bailey sense the feelings he aroused? He was resting on his elbows, watching the water roll in. She wondered if this pose was significant, if he was dreaming of distant shores, all the places he couldn't go. In fact, he now lay back, flat on his back. And then Mathilde must have fallen asleep: the next she knew, Lorraine was gently shaking her by the shoulder.

“Don't you think we should go? We're getting a lot of sun.”

They decided not to change, but shower at Bailey's place. They drove back quietly, Mathilde dozing in the back, Lorraine in front again. Lorraine felt mellow—was that what this was? Perhaps it had something to with the drug after all. She smiled and said to Bailey, “Do you remember ‘Mellow Yellow'?”

He laughed. “I do. Just. One of those English ones?”

In his apartment, he made them
mojitos
, and they talked about old rock 'n' roll songs, and that whole period.

“I think 1964 was the peak. That summer.”

Bailey smiled, “I can't keep the years straight any more.”

“I know what you mean. But I remember that summer. Of course that was the year the Beatles came.”

Mathilde clapped her hands. “Lorraine, you are not going to tell me that you saw them?”

“Of course I did. In Toronto. Maple Leaf Gardens—”

“Did you faint?”

“No. I
screamed
, I'll admit that. I suppose I was too old to faint. But I wanted to see them. That was in September, though. It was really the summer—and there were so many songs besides the Beatles. ‘Pretty Woman,' ‘Do Wah Diddy'—”

“Lorraine, you are shocking me.”

“Manfred Mann.” She began to hum—

Bailey said, “Wasn't there something called ‘The Shoop Shoop Song'?”

“Yes!”

“I don't believe it, you two!”

“‘Louie, Louie,' ‘Needles and Pins.'”

“Jackie
Dee
-shannon,” said Bailey.

Lorraine raised a finger. “I think she wrote it, but the Searchers had the hit.”

Bailey laughed, “I'm not going to argue with you!”

Lorraine took a drink of her second
mojito
. “Tell me, Bailey. Were you listening to
white
music that year?”

Bailey chuckled, “Well, white music was getting better and you always want to give the devil his due.”

They all crammed into Bailey's tiny kitchen and got supper ready, Lorraine and Mathilde putting the salad together. The meal was fried chicken with rice and beans, green bananas fried, and the salad. Bailey, still thinking about the music, said, “I agree about '64, that was a big year. But really it was all over by then. The Revolution. What year did Buddy Holly die—that plane crash?”

“1959. February.”

“Of course!” cried Mathilde. “That's always the year! Look out that window and you can see the end of the world, preserved forever!” To Lorraine she said, “He has a great line, ‘The future isn't over yet,' I'm going to use it in my piece. I will tell you something: there never was a revolution.”

“Well, I agree. I was thinking that this morning, looking at Wilfredo Lam.” She had a guilty moment then, because of her deception, a feeling that she was only deepening it. But she went on. “So many of his images are negatives, negatives of the background, silhouettes in a way. Reversals. It made me think that revolutions are only real if something happens afterwards, that's when you see the meaning of it.” She looked at Mathilde. “Balzac, if you see what I mean—he proves there really was a French Revolution.”

“So, if you are right, there wasn't a revolution here—”

“At least that remains an open question.”

“Not very open, I'd say.”

Bailey said, “I'm going to do the dishes. You two do the politics.”

“No, no,” said Lorraine, “you did most of the cooking. We'll do them. Come on, Mathilde.”

Mathilde and Bailey had come up with two bottles of Chilean Merlot, not very good, but wine, and they'd drunk it all. Lorraine had consumed her share, plus two
mojitos
—Bailey's were fairly lethal— and then there'd been the sun, and the effects of the pill she'd taken. By the time she and Mathilde had finished the dishes, this was all taking its toll. “I should get back,” she said. “I want to be back by nine.”

“You look a little pale. Why not lie down for a minute? There's no hurry. Bailey can drive us back. What's so important about nine o'clock?”

Lorraine lay back on the couch. “Mathilde, you know very well you want to stay here.”
That
, thought Lorraine, was the wine: she'd been perfectly discreet until then. She went on. “Hugo might call me.”