The World According To Garp (28 page)

In the second year of this friendship, Harry told Garp that Alice liked to go to movies. “I
don’t
,” Harry admitted, “but if you do—and Helen said that you did—why not take Alice?”

Alice Fletcher giggled at movies, especially serious movies, she shook her head in disbelief at almost every thing she saw. It took months for Garp to realize that Alice had something of an impediment or a nervous defect in her speech; perhaps it was psychological. At first Garp thought it was the popcorn.

“You have a speech problem, I think, Alice,” he said, driving her home one night.

“Yeth,” she said, nodding her head. Often it was a simple lisp; sometimes it was completely different. Occasionally, it wasn’t there. Excitement seemed to aggravate it.

“How’s the book coming?” he asked her.

“Good,” she said. At one movie she had blurted out that she’d liked
Procrastination
.

“Do you want me to read any of your work?” Garp asked her.

“Yeth,” she said, her small head bobbing. She sat with her short, strong fingers crushing her skirt in her lap, the way Garp had seen her daughter crinkle her clothes—the child would sometimes roll her skirt, like a window shade, right up above her panties (though Alice stopped short of this).

“Was it an accident?” Garp asked her. “Your speech problem. Or were you born with it?”

“Born with,” Alice said. The car stopped at the Fletchers’ house and Alice tugged Garp’s arm. She opened her mouth and pointed inside, as if this would explain everything. Garp saw the rows of small, perfect teeth and a tongue that was fat and fresh-looking like the tongue of a child. He could see nothing peculiar, but it was dark in the car, and he wouldn’t have known what was peculiar if he’d seen it. When Alice closed her mouth, he saw she was crying—and also smiling, as if this act of self-exposure had required enormous trust. Garp nodded his head as if he understood everything.

“I see,” he mumbled. She wiped her tears with the back of one hand, squeezed his hand with her other.

“Harrithon is having an affair,” she said.

Garp knew that Harry wasn’t having an affair with Helen, but he didn’t know what poor Alice thought.

“Not with Helen,” Garp said.

“Na, na,” Alice said, shaking her head. “Thumone
elth
.”

“Who?” Garp asked.

“A thtudent!” Alice wailed. “A thtupid little twat!”

It had been a couple of years since Garp had molested Little Squab Bones, but in that time he had indulged himself in one other baby-sitter; to his shame, he had even forgotten her name. He felt, honestly, that baby-sitters were an appetite he was forever through with. Yet he sympathized with Harry—Harry was his friend, and he was an important friend to Helen. He also sympathized with Alice. Alice was alertly lovable; a kind of terminal vulnerability was clearly a part of her, and she wore it as visibly as a too-tight sweater on her compact body.

“I’m sorry,” Garp said. “Can I do anything?”

“Tell him to
thtop
,” Alice said.

It had never been hard for Garp to stop, but he had never been a teacher—with “thtudents” on his mind, or on his hands. Perhaps what Harry was involved with was something else. The only thing Garp could think of—that would perhaps make Alice feel better—was to confess his own mistakes.

“It happens, Alice,” he said.

“Not to you,” Alice said.

“Twice to me,” Garp said. She looked at him, shocked.

“Tell the
truth
,” she insisted.

“The truth,” he said, “is that it happened twice. A baby-sitter, both times.”

“Jesuth Chritht,” said Alice.

“But they weren’t important,” Garp said. “I love Helen.”

“
Thith
is important,” Alice said. “He hurth me. And I can’t
white
.”

Garp knew about writers who couldn’t
white
; this made Garp love Alice, on the spot.

“Fucking Harry is having an affair,” Garp told Helen.

“I know,” Helen said. “I’ve told him to stop, but he keeps going back for more. She’s not even a very good student.”

“What can we do?” Garp asked her.

“Fucking
lust
,” Helen said. “Your mother was right. It is a man’s problem.
You
talk to him.”

“Alice told me about your baby-sitters,” Harry told Garp. “It’s not the same. This is a special girl.”

“A
student
, Harry,” Garp said. “Jesus Christ.”

“A
special
student,” Harry said. “I’m not like you. I’ve been honest, I’ve told Alice from the first. She’s just got to accommodate it. I’ve told her she’s free to do this, too.”

“She doesn’t know any students,” Garp said.

“She knows
you
,” Harry told him. “And she’s in love with you.”

“What can we do?” Garp asked Helen. “He’s trying to set me up with Alice so he’ll feel better about what he’s doing.”

“At least he’s been honest with her,” Helen told Garp. There was one of those silences wherein a family can identify its separate, breathing parts in the night. Open doors off an upstairs hall: Duncan breathing lazily, an almost-eight-year-old with lots of time to live; Walt breathing those tentative two-year-old breaths, short and excited; Helen, even and cool. Garp held his breath. He knew she knew about the baby-sitters.

“Harry told you?” he asked.

“You might have told me before you told Alice,” Helen said. “Who was the second one?”

“I forget her name,” Garp admitted.

“I think it’s shabby,” Helen said. “It’s really beneath me; it’s beneath
you
. I hope you’ve outgrown it.”

“Yes, I have,” Garp said. He meant he had outgrown baby-sitters. But lust itself? Ah, well. Jenny Fields had fingered a problem at the heart of her son’s heart.

“We’ve got to help the Fletchers,” Helen said. “We’re too fond of them to do nothing about this.”

Helen, Garp marveled, moved through their life together as if it were an essay she was structuring—with an introduction, a presentation of basic priorities, then the thesis.

“Harry thinks the student is
special
,” Garp pointed out.

“Fucking
men
,” Helen said. “You look after Alice.
I’ll
show Harrison what’s special.”

So one night, after Garp had cooked an elegant Paprika Chicken and spätzle, Helen said to Garp, “Harrison and I will do the dishes. You take Alice home.”

“Take her home?” Garp said. “Now?”

“Show him your novel,” Helen said to Alice. “Show him
everything
you want. I’m going to show your husband what an asshole he is.”

“Hey, come on,” Harry said. “We’re all friends, we all want to
stay
friends, right?”

“You simple son of a bitch,” Helen told him. “You fuck a student and call her special—you insult your wife, you insult me.
I’ll
show you what’s special.”

“Go easy, Helen,” Garp said.

“Go with Alice,” Helen said. “And let Alice drive her own baby-sitter home.”

“Hey, come on!” Harrison Fletcher said.

“Shuth up, Harrithon!” Alice said. She grabbed Garp’s hand and stood up from the table.

“Fucking
men
,” said Helen. Garp, as speechless as an Ellen Jamesian, took Alice home.

“I can take the baby-sitter home, Alice,” he said. “Jutht get back
fatht
,” Alice said.

“Very fast, Alice,” Garp said.

She made him read the first chapter of her novel aloud to her. “I want to
hear
it,” she told him, “and I can’t
thay
it mythelf.” So Garp said it to her; it read, he was relieved to hear, beautifully. Alice wrote with such fluency and care that Garp could have
sung
her sentences, unselfconsciously, and they would have sounded fine.

“You have a lovely voice, Alice,” he told her, and she cried. And they made love, of course, and despite what everyone knows about such things, it was special.

“Wasn’t it?” asked Alice.

“Yes, it
was
,” Garp admitted.

Now, he thought,
here
is trouble.

“What can we do?” Helen asked Garp. She had made Harrison Fletcher forget his “special” student; Harrison now thought that
Helen
was the most special thing in his life.

“You started it,” Garp said to her. “If it’s going to stop, you’ve got to stop it, I think.”

“That’s easy to say,” Helen said. “I
like
Harrison; he’s my best friend, and I don’t want to lose that. I’m just not very interested in sleeping with him.”

“
He’s
interested,” Garp said.

“God, I know,” Helen said.

“He thinks you’re the best he’s had,” Garp told her. “Oh, great,” Helen said. “That must be lovely for Alice.”

“Alice isn’t thinking about it,” Garp said. Alice was thinking about
Garp
, Garp knew; and Garp was afraid the whole thing would stop. There were times when Garp thought that Alice was the best he’d ever had. “And what about you?” Helen asked him. (“Nothing is equal,” Garp would write, one day.)

“I’m fine,” Garp said. “I like Alice, I like you, I like Harry.”

“And Alice?” Helen asked.

“Alice likes me,” Garp said.

“Oh boy,” Helen said. “So we all like each other, except that I don’t care that much for
sleeping
with Harrison.”

“So it’s over,” Garp said, trying to hide the gloom in his voice. Alice had cried to him that it could
never
be over. (“Could it? Could it?” she had cried. “I can’t jutht
thtop
!”)

“Well, isn’t it still better than it
was
?” Helen asked Garp.

“You made your point,” Garp said. “You got Harry off his damn student. Now you’ve just got to let him down easy.”

“And what about you and Alice?” Helen asked.

“If it’s over for one of us, it’s over for all of us,” Garp said. “That’s only fair.”

“I know what’s
fair
,” Helen said. “I also know what’s
human
.”

The good-byes that Garp imagined conducting with Alice were violent scenarios, fraught with Alice’s incoherent speech and always ending in desperate lovemaking—another failed resolution, wet with sweat and sweet with the lush stickum of sex, oh yeth.

“I think Alice is a little
loony
,” Helen said.

“Alice is a pretty good writer,” Garp said. “She’s the real thing.”

“Fucking
writers
,” Helen mumbled.

“Harry doesn’t appreciate how talented Alice is,” Garp heard himself say.

“Oh boy,” Helen murmured. “This is the last time I try to save anyone’s marriage except my own.”

It took six months for Helen to let Harry down easy, and in that time Garp saw as much of Alice as he could, while still trying to forewarn her that their foursome was going to be short-lived. He also tried to forewarn himself, because he dreaded the knowledge that he would have to give Alice up.

“It’s not the same, for all four of us,” he told Alice. “It will have to stop, and pretty soon.”

“Tho what?” Alice said. “It hasn’t thtopped yet, has it?”

“Not yet,” Garp admitted. He read all her written words aloud to her, and they made love so much he stung in the shower and couldn’t stand to wear a jock when he ran.

“We’ve got to do and
do
it,” Alice said, fervently. “Do it while we can.”

“You know, this
can’t
last,” Garp tried to warn Harry, while they were playing squash.

“I know, I know,” Harry said, “but it’s great
while
it lasts, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t it?” Alice demanded. Did Garp love Alice? Oh yeth.

“Yes, yes,” Garp said, shaking his head. He thought he did.

But Helen, enjoying it the least of them, suffered it the most; when she finally called an end to it, she couldn’t help but show her euphoria. The other three couldn’t help but show their resentment: that she should appear so uplifted while they were cast into such gloom. Without formal imposition there existed a six-month moratorium on the couples’ seeing each other, except by chance. Naturally, Helen and Harry ran into each other at the English Department. Garp encountered Alice in the supermarket. Once she deliberately crashed her shopping cart into his; little Walt was jarred among the produce and the juice cans, and Alice’s daughter looked equally alarmed at the collision.

“I felt the need of thum
contact
,” Alice said. And she called the Garps one night, very late, after Garp and Helen had gone to bed. Helen answered the phone.

“Is Harrithon there?” she asked Helen.

“No, Alice,” Helen said. “Is something wrong?”

“He’s not
here
,” Alice said. “I haven’t theen Harrithon all night!”

“Let me come over and sit with you,” Helen suggested. “Garp can go look for Harrison.”

“Can’t
Garp
come over and thit with me?” Alice asked. “
You
look for Harrithon.”

“No,
I’ll
come over and sit with you,” Helen said. “I think that’s better. Garp can go look for Harrison.”

“I want Garp,” Alice said.

“I’m sorry that you can’t have him,” Helen said.

“I’m thorry, Helen,” Alice said. She cried into the phone and said a stream of things that Helen couldn’t understand. Helen gave the phone to Garp.

Garp talked to Alice, and listened to her, for about an hour. Nobody looked for “Harrithon.” Helen felt she had done a good job of holding herself together for the six months she’d allowed it all to continue; she expected them all to at least control themselves adequately, now that it was over.

“If Harrison is out screwing students, I’m
really
going to cross him off,” Helen said. “That
asshole!
And if Alice calls herself a writer, why isn’t she writing? If she’s got so much to
thay
, why waste saying it on the phone?”

Time, Garp knew, would ease everything. Time would also prove him wrong about Alice’s writing. She may have had a pretty voice but she couldn’t complete anything; she never finished her second novel, not in all the years that the Garps would know the Fletchers—or in all the years after. She could say everything beautifully, but—as Garp remarked to Helen, when he was finally exasperated with Alice—she couldn’t get to the end of anything. She couldn’t
thtop
.