He said, “So the only way you could leave him would be if he died.”
“If he died,” she said, “I'd have to remarry. For the girls' sake. They need a father; it's the father who establishes the authority in the home. He relates the family to the outer world, to society. The mother does nothing but keep everyone fed and clothed and warm.”
After a pause, with some trepidation, he said, “Why don't you ask him?”
“Ask him what?”
“Which he'd prefer,” he said, feeling that he was making a mistake to say it, but, at the same time, wanting to say it to her. “Being dead or being divorced.”
At that, she got the fierce, cold look that he had seen only once or twice before. But when she spoke her voice was completely under control, as calm as he had ever heard it. It had, in fact, a deeply rational tone to it, as if she were speaking out of the depths of her wisdom and experience, from the most educated part of her. Not from emotion at all, but from the most widely-accepted, the most incontrovertible knowledge. “Well,” she said, “it's a lot to ask a man, to take on the responsibility for the children, especially another man's children. I don't blame you. You have a relatively easy life, as it is. In the long run I doubt if you could sustain this family. I'd really have to be married to a man who could support me. Let's face it. You haven't got the capability to do that.” She smiled at him, the brief, aloof smile that he had come to recognize. Almost a gracious smile.
There was nothing much more for him to say. Going to the closet he got his coat.
“Are you walking out on me?” she said.
Nat said, “I don't see any point in staying.”
“Better you should walk out now,” she said. “It's probably better for you, too, in the long run. Anyhow it's easier. Isn't it?”
“No,” he said. “It isn't.”
“Oh, it is,” she contradicted. “It's the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is put on your coat and go back home to Gwen.” She followed after him, to the door. Her face had a white, throbbing quality. “Won't you kiss me good-bye?” she said.
He kissed her. “I'll see you,” he said.
“Say hello to Gwen,” she said. “Maybe we could all get together for dinner some evening. Charley should be back from the hospital in another week or so.”
“Okay,” he said. Hardly believing that it was happening, he shut the door after him and walked across the gravel and cypress needles to his car. The light remained on until he had backed from the driveway. Then, as soon as his car reached the road, the light went out.
In a daze, he drove home.
Suppose I hadn't started to clear the dinner dishes, he thought. Would it not have happened? It would have, he decided. Sooner or later. Our mutual hostilities and doubts would have summed up and clashed; it was only a question of time. It was inevitable.
But he still could not believe it, and now, as he drove, he began to be afraid of how he would feel when he did believe it. How it would affect him when it began to become real.
When he drove up in front of his own house he saw a strange car parked there. Getting out, he walked up the steps and into the house.
In the kitchen, Gwen sat at the table with a glass of wine in front of her. Across from her sat a man he had never seen before, a blond-haired young man wearing glasses. Both of them glanced up with dismay. But almost at once Gwen regained her composure.
“Home early,” she said in a brittle, hostile voice. “I thought you were probably going to stay longer.”
“Who's this?” Nat said, indicating the young man. His heart labored inside him. “I don't feel like coming home and finding a strange car parked in front of the house.”
“Oh,” Gwen said, in the same voice; its venom, its vast amount of loathing for him, staggered him. He had never heard her speak with such sarcasm, such giving to each syllable a sense of cruelty, the articulation of cruelty toward him, cruelty toward everything. As if, at this moment in their relationship, she could feel nothing but this. Nothing else remained. It was her total feeling. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I thought you and Fay would be together for the rest of the evening. Maybe the rest of the night.”
The young man started to get to his feet.
“Don't leave,” Gwen said, shifting her attention to him, but still using the same tone. “Why should you leave?” To Nat, she said, “We're right in the middle of working something out. Why don't you go away and come back some other time?”
“Working what out?” he said.
“An understanding,” she said. “Between the two of us. This is Robert Altrocchi. He lives down the road. Where the birds are. He raises parakeets and sells them to the dime stores in San Francisco.”
Nat said nothing.
“Do you mind?” Gwen said. “If we go on?” She made a motion of dismissal toward him. “Go drive off,” she said.
To the young man, Nat said, “Get out of here.”
Arising with elaborate slowness, Altrocchi pushed away his wine glass and said, “I was going. I have to get to work.” At the doorway he halted and said to Gwen, “I'll see you at the usual time, then?”
Ignoring Nat, she said, “Yes. Call me or I'll call you.” Now she had gotten into her voice—no doubt with great care—a tone of affection. “Good night, Bob.”
“Good night,” Altrocchi said. Presently they heard the front door close, and then the man's car drive off.
“How's Fay?” Gwen said, still seated at the table. She sipped her wine, eying him above the glass.
“Fine,” he said.
“It's okay for you to be with her,” Gwen said in a wavering voice, “but not okay for me.”
“I don't want to come home and find a strange car here,” he said. “I never brought Fay here,” he said. “It's wrong to bring somebody here. That's unfair. You can go out and see anybody you want, but don't bring them here. It's my house, too.”
“We can't go to his house,” Gwen said, raising her voice. “He's married and they have a six-month-old child.”
Hearing that, he felt crushing melancholy and hopelessness. So this was the consequence of his relationship with Fay. Not only had his own marriage been marred, ruined, but somebody's else's, a man he had never seen before in his life, a man with a new baby.
“If it's okay for you—” Gwen began.
“I gave you the example,” he interrupted.
She said nothing.
“You're paying me back,” he said. “This is my payment. Some guy I never saw. His wife and child have to suffer so you can get back at me. I want to marry Fay. I'm serious. You're not. Are you? You know you aren't.”
Gwen said nothing.
“This is terrible,” he said. “This is the worst thing I ever heard. How could you do a thing like this?”
On his wife's face the expression of suffering and determination increased. Everything he said only made her feel more strongly.
“One of us has to get out,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “You get out.”
“I will,” he said. Going into the bedroom he sat down on the bed. “I don't feel like it right now,” he said. “Later.”
“No,” Gwen said. “Now.”
“Go to hell,” he said, feeling perspiration stand out on his forehead. “Shut up,” he said weakly. “Don't talk to me any more, or I can't be responsible.”
Gwen said, “Don't threaten me.” But she stopped talking to him and went off by herself into the living room. He heard her seat herself on the couch.
The house was silent.
Good god, he thought. We're through. My marriage is over. Where am I? What's happened?
While he sat there, Gwen reappeared. “FU go,” she said. “So you won't have to be away from her. I'll go to Sacramento and stay with my family. Can I take the car?”
“If you take the car,” he said, “how can I get to work?” His heart beat so fast and so hard that it was a great effort to speak; it cost him all his energy and after e
ach word he had to rest.
“Then drive me to Sacramento and come back,” she said.
“Okay,” he said.
“Let me see what I have to take,” she said. “I won't try to take everything tonight. I'll come back tomorrow. Maybe I won't go to Sacramento tonight. It's too far. It would take all night to get there. I'll stay in a motel. There's one in Point Reyes, right here.”
“No,” he said. “I'll take you to Sacramento.”
She studied him and then, without a word, she went into the other room again. At first he heard nothing, and then he realized that she was beginning to get things together. He heard the sound of a suitcase being dragged from the closet.
“I've decided you're right,” he said, staying where he was. “I can't drive you to Sacramento tonight. Wait until tomorrow—sleep here, and we'll talk about it tomorrow.”
Gwen said from the other room, “I'm not sleeping with you tonight. You go over to her house and sleep, if you want me to stay here.”
“You can sleep on the couch,” he said. “Or I will.”
“Why don't you go back there?” Gwen appeared in the doorway. “Why did you come back so early?”
He said, “We had a fight.” He did not look at her but he could feel her eyes on him. “Nothing important. There was a lamb born dead and it upset her. It was horrible; it looked like a thing made out of wet tar.” He began, then, to tell her about it. For a moment she listened, and then she disappeared. She had gone off and resumed her packing. Feeling rage, he leaped up from the bed and followed after her. “Don't you want to hear?” he demanded.
“I have enough to think about,” Gwen said.
“You could listen to this,” he said, standing in the center of the room while she packed. “Why don't you listen? It seems a hell of a thing to me, one hell of a thing, that you won't even listen. It really makes me feel bad.”
“I'm sorry about the dead lamb,” Gwen said. “But I don't see what it matters. I let you go and stay with her, and I never said anything; I let you do what you wanted, and when people came by and wondered where you were I said you were down in Mill Valley working late; I never told anybody about you and her.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“I don't know what you're going to do when he gets back from the hospital,” Gwen said. “What are you going to do? Won't he find out? Somebody'll tell him—you know nobody can keep things a secret in these little towns. Everybody knows everybody.”
“If you leave,” he said, “then there won't be any doubt of it. No doubt at all.”
“You want me to stay,” she said, “to save you from being killed or whatever he's going to do when he gets home?”
“He won't do anything,” he said. “He's a sick man. He'll be in bed for months, recuperating. He almost died. He could still die. It wouldn't take much.”
Bitterly, Gwen said, “Maybe the shock of finding out will be enough. Then you'll have clear sailing.”
“I love her,” he said. “I want to marry her. This is all something I feel proud of. I know that sounds incredible—”
“No,” Gwen said. “It doesn't sound incredible. You're drawn to her because you see the children, and I know you want children, but we couldn't have them because of your school. Is she going to put you through school? This way you can have both—you can go to school and at the same time have a big nice house and kids and everything else you want. T-bone steaks for dinner. Right?”
“I want a stable home and family,” he said.
“You know what I think will become of you if you marry her?”
He could not keep himself from saying, “What do you think?”
“You'll be a handy man and domestic servant, keeping that place going. Keeping her house going. You'll balance her budget, turn down the thermostats to save money on the heating bill—”
“No,” he interrupted. “Because it's off. I'm not seeing her again. We broke up.”
“Why?”
He said, “Because of what you said just now. I don't want to wind up a domestic sevant, doing her dishes for her.” As he said it he felt the full weight of his disloyalty fall on him. His treason to Fay, not to his wife; it was Fay that now held his loyalty, his sense of being morally obligated. Standing there in his own living room, with his own wife, telling his wife that he was through with Fay, he knew that he was not through with her, not if he could help it. The pull was too strong. He yearned for her. He yearned to be back in that house with her. The rest was talk.
“I don't believe it,” Gwen said. “You'll never have the strength to break off with her. She's got you completely tied up. She always gets her way; she's got the mind of a two-year-old child—she wants what she sees and she gets it because she rides rough shod over everybody else.”
“She recognizes that,” he said. “That's why she goes down to Doctor Andrews. She's struggling with it.”
Gwen laughed. “Oh?” she said. “You're optimistic? Then why are you breaking up with her?”
To that, he could give no answer.
“I don't see how you could get involved with a woman like that,” Gwen said. “Do you want to be bossed the rest of your life? Do you crave to be back in a child-parent relationship?”
“I'm tired of hearing about it,” he said.
“I'm not surprised that you're tired of hearing about it,” Gwen said. “What I wonder is will you ever be tired of living it.”
Going outside, he sat in the car and waited while she packed.
14
In his hospital bed, Charley Hume looked up with surprise to see Nathan Anteil entering the room.
“Hello, Charley,” Nathan said.
“I'll be darned,” Charley Hume said. He lay back again.
Nat said, “I brought you a couple of magazines to read.” He laid a copy of Life and True on the table beside the bed. “They say you're going to be coming home in a couple of days.”
“Right,” Charley said. “I'm about ready for the big moment.” He lay watching Nathan. “Nice to see you,” he said. “What brings you down here to San Francisco?”
“Just thought I'd drop by,” Nat said. “It occurred to me that I've only been down to visit you one or two times, and then with someone else. You're looking good. You know that?”
Charley said, “I'll be on a diet. Isn't that a hell of a thing? A real lousy one. To keep my weight down.” He reached out and picked up the magazines, noticing as he did so that he had read the Life. His brother-in-law had brought it from the library on his last trip. But nevertheless he went through the motions of glancing over it. “How's everything been going?” he said finally.
“Fine,” Nat said.
“World treating you okay?”
“No reason to complain,” Nat said.
“Listen, boy,” Charley said. He took the bull by the horns, then. “I know about you and my wife.”
Across from him he saw Nathan's face speckled with shock. “Is that so?” Nathan said. He pressed his hands together, clasping and intertwining … the flesh became white as he pressed. He did not look at Charley for a moment, and then he raised his head, saying, “That's why I'm here. I wanted to come and tell you, face to face.”
“Hell no,” Charley said. “That's not why you're here; you came down here to find out what I'm going to do when I get back up there. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. When I get back—” He lowered his voice and peered past Nathan, to see if anyone were passing the open door to the hall. “Want to close that door?” he said.
Getting up, Nathan went and shut the door and returned.
Charley said, “When I get back up to Drake's Landing I'm going to kill that woman.”
After a long pause Nathan licked his lip and said, “Why? Because of me?”
“Hell no,” Charley said. “Because she's a bitch. I made up my mind as soon as I came to, after my heart attack. One of us has to kill the other. Didn't you know that? Didn't she tell you? She knows it. Christ, we can't both live in that h
ouse, and the only way one of us is going to leave is leave dead. I'll never leave any other way. Neither will she. It has nothing to do with you. On my word of honor.”
Nathan said nothing. He stared down at the floor.
“She got me in here,” Charley said. “She made me have this heart attack. I don't feel like having another one. The next one'll be the end of me.”
Nat said, “I don't think you'll really kill her. You feel like killing her. But that's different.”
“I'll be doing you the greatest favor anybody ever did you,” Charley said. “Don't fight it. You'll thank me someday, for freeing you from her. You don't have the guts to break away on your own. I know that, just to look at you. God almighty, you're sitting there practically begging me to do it. You want me to do it—because you know god damn well if I don't you'll be mixed up with this mess—with her— the rest of your life, and you'll never get any peace.” He paused, then, to rest. Talking so hard made him feel winded and tired.
“I don't think you'll do it,” Nat repeated.
Charley said nothing.
“She has fundamentally sound traits,” Nat said.
“My fucking back,” Charley said. “Don't kid yourself. She never lifted a finger in her life except to increase her hold over somebody so she could use them later on.”
Nathan said, “I think I can deal with her. I have no illusions about her.”
“You have one illusion,” Charley said. “No you have two. The first is that you'd win out over her. The second is that you'll ever have a chance to find out. You better make hay with her during the next few days, because that's all there's going to be. She knows. If she doesn't, she's dumber than I think she is.”
Nathan said, “Suppose we break up. Suppose I stop seeing her.”
“That doesn't make any difference. This has got nothing to do with you. I like you; I have nothing against you. What do I care if she wants to go roll in the hay with you? She doesn't mean anything to me. She's just a lousy shit of a woman that I happen to be married to that I've got a lot against, and with this heart now I know sooner or later I'm going to fall over dead, so I can't wait forever, I put it off too long as it is. I should have done it years ago, but I kept putting it off. I darn near lost my chance ever to do it.” He paused to get his breath.