She’d become an appurtenance in his life. Like Edith.
The most beautiful name in the world.
Marsh, calling late at night from California: “I must see you, darling, can you meet me in New York, I’ll be there on the twentieth, god, it’s been so long!”
She raced down to New York in the car, wearing the three-hundred-dollar leather suit she’d bought in Saks months before in sheer anticipation of his next visit. Couldn’t afford the suit, but didn’t care. It was splendid, white with black piping. Had the car washed before she went to the airport. Here we are all clean and new for you. She charged through the airport crowd like a blind woman, breathless. But didn’t recognize him when he appeared. He walked over as she was still searching the crowd. He was fat: he’d gained thirty pounds.
She thought: He’s eating. Because he misses me. And was not displeased.
He didn’t like her suit, it was hard and it squeaked. He kept complaining about it. He didn’t like anything. He complained about the paintings in the Modern (“a lot of crap”), the hotel (“I
told
you to book a single! They had me down for a double!” “I
did
book a single! They made the mistake”). They argued, finally dropped it. He never believed her. Thought she was trying to ruin him, unconsciously, of course. His secretary would see
double
on the bill, and suspect something. He could not afford to be under suspicion. What she really wants is for me to divorce my wife and marry her. Oh, she says she doesn’t, but all women want to be married. Unconscious, of course, she doesn’t mean harm. But I’ll have to be wary.
Dolores saw what he thought. And knew there was no way she could convince him of anything else. She’d been very careful to book a single, he’d given her precise instructions about it. But he’d never believe that. He’d never believe that she didn’t want to marry him, didn’t want to marry anyone (he didn’t know what marriage meant to her), but especially Marsh, a politician, what a life for a woman!
It made her feel strange that he didn’t, wouldn’t ever, believe her, though. As if for him she was a different Dolores, someone other than she was, someone who didn’t really know what she felt, someone who needed a man to feel whole.
Over cocktails that evening (she having discarded the hated leather suit and wearing plunging black) he asked: What’s the most beautiful name in the world?
She looked at him: that was a question?
“Edith,” he announced, smiling with satisfaction.
It was his wife’s name.
She sat in numb stillness in the hotel room while he gave his speech. Why did he call me? Why didn’t he say: I can’t handle this, loving my wife on the West Coast and you on the East. That would have been honest, and she would have understood. Why didn’t he say: My guilts are too strong, I can’t go on with this. Why didn’t he say: My political career …
Oh, god, what a coward he was! He couldn’t admit to being a mere human himself, so he came and turned her into a subhuman. Came and found fault with everything she did, everything she said. Everything she wore, for godsakes. Came and unwound, ribbon by ribbon, my finery of love, stripped me bare so he could find nothing inside. And I, loving him, let him do it, let myself undergo it, and let myself feel stripped and empty, felt like the nothing he wanted to find.
But that night he was sweet and loving, the way he’d been in the past. He was going to Princeton the next day, would she drive him? It would mean staying over an extra day, but they’d have dinner at the Forum tomorrow night, have a chance to spend some time together.
She thought: Maybe it’s just New York that makes him paranoiac, maybe he’s right to be worried here, so many people who might know him. Maybe it’s New York that’s unnerving him.
So she called Carol and spoke to the kids to explain, and asked Carol if she’d mind keeping them an extra day. Then called someone to cover her Thursday classes for her. And rose early Wednesday morning and drove, nervously, the unfamiliar roads. They arrived at Princeton before noon. Then he told her there was a luncheon before his speech, and that she should go somewhere and have a bite and be back to pick him up around three thirty or four. And to park far from the building. He didn’t want anyone to see her.
Chauffeurs are treated with more respect: at least you
pay
them.
He returned in high spirits, his speech had gone well, there were important people in the audience. He talked continuously, telling her everything, every detail, assuming she was fascinated. He didn’t notice her silence. Then said that he was very sorry but he’d have to get up and be out of the hotel very early the next day, his plane left at eight, and he wouldn’t get to see her at all next morning, unless, of course, she cared to drive him to the airport on her way back to New England? …
The airport? On her way
back
to New England? She smiled.
He saw her smile, and it was a full one, no sadness in it. He leaned back comfortably in his seat and smiled at her benevolently. “You know, Dolores, I think you’re beginning to learn. To accept the way things are, the way they have to be.”
“Yes, I’m beginning to learn,” she said.
When they reached the hotel, he said, “Shall I have the boy park your car?”
“I’m not parking it,” she said, and jumped out. She got the key from the desk clerk (forbidden!), and went up to the room and packed her things hurriedly.
When she returned to the car, he was still sitting in it, looking puzzled. “Where do you want to go?” he asked her, glancing at the suitcase in her hand.
“I’m going back to Boston.”
“Boston? Now? I thought we were having dinner at the Forum.”
“You have it. With your vanity, your superiority, and your stupidity.”
He sat there gazing at her. She could feel a fire mount slightly in him, the fire he’d had for her in the beginning, before she’d shown herself docile.
“Get out, please.”
He opened the car door. “Are you sure you won’t reconsider? It will be dark driving to Boston now.”
“Move!” she ordered, and took off, speeding into the line of traffic as soon as he was away from the door, but while it was still open. It felt good to do that, yes: action. Then reach over while driving and slam the door shut. Felt good.
For a minute or two. Because for the rest of the night and for months afterwards, she felt raw and scraped, felt she had swallowed a burr and it was stuck in her esophagus. Love, that was.
God loves you, He will fill you, diet for Jesus.
Tears stood in Dolores’s eyes. She stood up, a little unsteadily, and poured another Scotch.
She never knew what to do when she felt this way, felt devoured by her own emotions, felt her stomach eating itself away. She wasn’t given to physical violence. Jack used to knock over furniture, vases, throw things. It was a good way and she would have approved it had it not been
her
furniture,
her
vases. If she’d done that here, they’d cart her off to the loony bin. A man could get away with it, if he were drunk. They’d calm him down and put it on his bill.
Okay, Victor wasn’t coming back for dinner. It was really dark out now, must be eight or nine. He said he’d call. Maybe he forgot that too, along with me. Well, I think I’ll go back to Boston.
There might be a late train. Couldn’t take the car and drive. Too many drinks. Must be late trains to someplace. Doesn’t matter where, she’d go to Glasgow, Wales, anyplace. Just to go, to get out of this pumpkin shell. Leave. Show
him.
He can’t treat me this way, the children are grown up and I don’t have to stay here anymore. Just walk out of the house like that and not come back for days? What kind of thing is that to do, Martin, I ask you! Poppa, where ya going, Poppa? Can I come, Poppa? Can I come this time? Can I come
next
time? Poppa? Come back filthy and unshaven, Momma standing there looking at him with a face full of contempt. I love you, Poppa, little voice, hand slipped through his, he’d stroke my head, embarrassed, go to your room, Dolores, Momma would say, not unkindly. Lie there on the bed wondering why Poppa always goes away why Momma was always mad at him….
She drank her Scotch down, got up for more. She had not turned on the lights in the room, because she could not stand all the mirrors, and she stumbled around finding her way by the light cast by the street-lamps outside. The phone rang, at least she thought it was the phone and not her ears, which were also ringing. She could not find it, she stumbled around, she tripped over something, fell on the floor, crawled toward the sound, it was ringing ringing ringing, and found it finally, picked it up and a man’s voice said “Lorie?” and she said “Who?” and then he said “Lorie!” and she said “No,” and then he said something else she couldn’t understand and then there was a strange noise, a buzzing, it must be a bad connection all the way from California but if Marsh thought she was going to see him again after the way he’d acted, he was really oblivious, oblivious yes, oblivion….
Well, she was sick of his rages! Sick, sick, sick! Slamming the phone down on her like that. Calling up to check on her, make sure she was home, it was a joke, he called wherever she went, everybody knew it.
Checking up on her while he was out there getting his ego stroked, telling her to park far away, or to stay in the room, hidden away, Rosamund. His wife too, plopped in her pumpkin shell and kept there. Very well.
Jack, Jack, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her,
Put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.
After the ball, after the finery, Cinderella’s coach turns into a pumpkin shell. Yes, that was what that was all about.
She got up and stumbled to the bathroom and switched on the light. She returned to the bedroom, able to see by the bathroom light, and wandered around it, singing lightly under her breath, picking up her notes, her sweater, the shoes she’d kicked off hours ago. Bent and stood up and caught sight of a woman with a white face and disheveled hair and a strange expression. She moved back from the mirror slowly, and stood very still. There was something wrong with her. She could feel it. It was something serious. She’d have to be careful. It was going to be hard to live this way, she’d have to walk very carefully, a little at a list. She could do it if she tried hard. She’d slide by. She had to, because if they saw, they did horrible things to you, they grabbed you by the arm and stuck needles in you and locked you up and gave you electric shock.
First thing was to get out. But if she went out carrying a suitcase, they might stop her. Pay the bill, please, they’d say. She didn’t have enough money to pay the bill and buy a railroad ticket. Where was this place, anyway. She stumbled over to the window and looked out. Melbourne, of course. Or was it Sydney? No, Sydney was in New Hampshire, learning to be a poet, growing alfalfa. She giggled at her brilliant pun. Sydney, running towards her over the grass, eyes bright, “You came, Mom! Isn’t it great!” Smiling, leaping into her arms as if she was still six. Sydney with callouses on her hands from farm work. “I love it, I really do! Can I show you my new poem?” Shyly, flushed cheeks, trying not to care so much, but caring. Yes, Sydney was all right. And Tony, he was in Omaha. Do you suppose it’s cold out there? Does he have a jacket? Well, by now he must know how to get jackets. He was all right, he was somewhere. And Elspeth too. She was dead, that’s where she was.
Dolores stuffs all her things into her large canvas purse. Everything fits except a sweater and a robe. She’d leave the robe behind but she loves it, her children gave it to her. It won’t go in. Solution: wear it! She pulls it around her, over her clothes, and looks in the mirror. (Terrible, terrible, to look in the mirror.) No, something wrong. It wouldn’t pass. They’d catch her. She’s clever, she knows they pick you up for the slightest deviation. Takes off the robe, takes off her jacket, puts the robe back on and the jacket over it. No. Even though fashionable clothes these days are layered.
Layered.
A very funny word. She says it aloud several times, giggling.
If she could pull the skirt of the robe up high enough so that it looked like those tunics they wear over pants, that would do it. Stuff the middle into the slacks, put the jacket over all. Oh, she is clever! Pulls up the robe, stuffs fabric into the waistband of her slacks. Takes time, effort. There’s a lot of fabric and it’s so thick.
She looks in the mirror. She buttons the jacket but the two bottom ones won’t close. She looks odd. She is fat for Jesus. But she will pass.
Everything is ready. Except the sweater. She drapes that over her arm. She eyes the Scotch. Nice to have it on the train. But not much left. Leave it for him. But he doesn’t drink Scotch, Marsh drinks bourbon. Anthony really is turning into an alcoholic, drinking from ten in the morning. If only she could lock
him
in a pumpkin shell whenever he is having a tantrum, lock him in and let him pound the door with his fists and cry until he was tired, then slump down at the doorsill, asleep. Yes, then the rest of them could be happy. They could smile and laugh even. They could play. The children out in the yard playing ball, voices light in the summer air, Tony and Elspeth taking turns trying to teach Sydney how to hold a bat, no, not that way you little Sydneybug, Elspeth would laugh, Tony pitching the ball to her ever so gently, not to frighten her, then racing around, bats dropped on the ground (pick them up before Anthony comes!), smiling, calling out, cheeks pink, hair falling in their eyes, Elspeth leaping high, oh, so high! little Elf, my little Elf, hair like a slow-motion wave against the green leaves, golden.
I don’t know what trains there are.
Telephone. No. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what train you take, they all go to the same place. All trains lead to death, all children are born with cancer, born dying, the round soft faces, the sober straight clear eyes.
The eyes of a child look right at you. There’s nothing between them and you. No veils. And when they laugh! Children in Fiji, splashing you as your boat passes them swimming in the river, eyes black and shiny as onyx, delighted with their mischief, delighted with themselves, delighted with you. Pure joy.