In a moment they were parked in front of the dark little cottage. Hadley pocketed the car keys, shut off the lights, and slid out onto the gravel walk. As he mounted the steps to the cottage Marsha came slowly behind with the sacks of food. The door fell open, and the two of them entered, Hadley a step ahead as he felt for the light switch.
A tiny room like a monk’s cell flashed into being. Barren, austere, without ornaments of any kind, the room sparkled starkly in the white electric light. Hadley stalked about; he inspected the bathroom, and the cul-de-sac that served as a shower. The place was spotlessly clean, ascetic in its simplicity. It pleased him. This was how he remembered it; years ago he had brought girls to this motel…one of them had been Ellen. He tossed his jacket over a chair and went back to close the door.
“It would be hard to sin here,” he said as he pulled down the shades.
“Yes, they certainly keep it nice,” Marsha admitted. Shivering, she began wandering fretfully around. “It’s cold; light the heater, won’t you?”
Hadley touched a match to the dwarf gas heater, and in a moment the room sweated with warmth. He lit a floor lamp and turned off the glaring overhead bulb. In the softer light the colors of the woman’s clothes attracted his attention; he noticed for the first time that instead of slacks she was wearing a brightly colored print blouse and a tweed skirt.
Amused, he observed: “I’d hardly know it was you.”
Self-consciously, Marsha lifted her hands to her breasts. “Why do you say that?”
“You look almost feminine. It does you good—that outfit works out nice.” He threw himself down on a stiff straight-backed chair and accepted the two paper sacks of food. As he laid out the packages and white pasteboard cartons he said: “I’d be willing to bet we’re the only people here. I didn’t see any other cars; it’s possible all the other cabins are empty.”
“Don’t say that,” Marsha said apprehensively. “It’s so morbid; I saw lights in some of them, I think.”
“Ghosts,” Hadley pronounced.
“Stop it!” Marsha paced tautly around the room, long-legged, lithe. “Do you have your cigarettes? I left mine in the car.”
Hadley tossed her his pack. Carefully, he pulled the lid from a pasteboard carton. It contained ice-cold grapefruit juice; it was the only kind of juice he had been able to find. Gratefully, he gulped it down. Presently Marsha seated herself and daintily unwrapped a chicken-salad sandwich.
“I wish we had something hot,” she murmured. “To cheer me up.” Eyes large and dark she said: “I’m lonely. All you do is just sit—drinking that damn juice.” Plaintively, she went on: “I wish you’d pay some attention to me.”
“I will,” Hadley said soberly.
He finished his juice and opened his milk shake. Sipping it, he began gnawing placidly on his ham and cheese sandwich. Marsha nibbled unhappily on the potato chips the girl had scooped into the bottom of the sacks.
“There’s a pay phone up at the office,” Hadley said.
“Who do you want to call?”
“My wife.”
“Oh,” Marsha said, her cheeks coloring. “Well, maybe you ought to…” She glanced up bravely. “What are you going to tell her?”
“It’s Friday night; I usually disappear Friday nights. For my regular weekly binge.”
“Doesn’t she mind?”
“She minds,” Hadley said, “but she’s not surprised.” He got up and went over to the window. Rolling up the shade he sat staring out at the empty darkness. The idea of going back seemed vague and unreal; already the image of his wife had begun to recede. It always did when he wasn’t actually with her. Sometimes he had trouble remembering what she looked like… In the first months of their marriage he had been terrified that someday he would meet her on the street and not recognize her.
“I would have gone to bed with you,” he said aloud to Marsha, “even though I’m married—even though I’ve got a son. But you wouldn’t go to bed with me.”
“No,” Marsha said tightly. “I couldn’t.”
“You almost did.” He grinned ironically. “If I had taken off my shoes, you would have.”
Marsha’s thin fingers tore apart her chicken-salad sandwich. “Maybe. I don’t know now. I wanted to.”
“Let’s face it,” Hadley said. “We’re both the same…neither of us has a trace of loyalty in us. You’d betray Beckheim; I’d betray my wife. We’re doing it now.”
“I don’t consider that I’m betraying Ted. I left him; he knows we’re finished.”
“You betrayed him when you first showed up at the store that day. And I betrayed Ellen a long time ago. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with us… Maybe that’s why we can’t find roots anywhere. We’ve cut our roots by our lack of loyalty. Who are you loyal to? Anybody?”
Marsha didn’t answer.
“I’m not loyal to anybody,” Hadley said. “It never occurred to me to be loyal to a person—only to an abstract ideal. I never had any loyalty to my boss, or my wife. I betrayed my friends—that was the worst of all. Everybody…my country, the society into which I was born. And then I wonder why I can’t find something to believe in. I wonder why I can’t trust anybody. I search for somebody I can put my faith in…but I’m without loyalty. I don’t even know what it means to be loyal. Yes, something’s wrong…and the fault is in me.”
Marsha said: “But we’re rebels, Stuart. We’re trying to bring in a different world.”
“We’re not rebels—we’re traitors.”
There was silence.
“And,” Hadley finished, pulling down the window shade, “we’re not even loyal to each other. Do you trust me? I sure as hell don’t trust you; I know you’ll run out on me the same way you ran out on Beckheim when it suited your whim. We’re both worthless to the core.”
“Don’t say that,” Marsha protested. Jerkily, she reached toward him. “Here, have some of my chicken-salad sandwich; I can’t finish it.”
Hadley bellowed with laughter. “All right,” he said. “Maybe that’ll change things. I’ll celebrate my understanding of myself. If we had something to drink we could make it a real occasion.”
Giving him the sandwich, Marsha said: “I’m going out to the car; I’ll be right back.” She opened the door and quickly disappeared outside into the darkness. He could hear her crunching rapidly across the gravel, opening up the car, and rummaging inside it.
A moment later she returned with a fifth of Haig and Haig. Closing the door after her she held the bottle up breathlessly, her cheeks flushed, out of breath and panting. “Okay?” she gasped.
“Okay,” Hadley said, taking the bottle from her. The woman’s hands were icy; the bottle itself was moist with night mists. “You better go over and stand in front of the heater,” he told her. “I’ll pour.”
He emptied the remains of the milk shakes into the bowl in the bathroom, washed out the pasteboard cartons, and tilted the whiskey into them. Marsha was sitting in a little heap on the couch when he returned, her eyes wide, hands pressed together, face drooping and sad.
“What’s the matter?” Hadley asked.
“I—didn’t think it would be this way.” She smiled forlornly up at him, her lips twisting. “I was coming back to you; everything was going to be wonderful. The two of us…you know.” She accepted her cup. “Thank you.”
“Haven’t you felt that way each time?” Hadley asked relentlessly. “Whenever you pick up a new one, don’t you hope it’ll be the one?”
Marsha huddled together and gazed miserably down at the floor. Mutely, she shook her head.
“I know I always do,” Hadley continued inexorably. He sipped the whiskey and stood watching her. In him there was almost no feeling for the woman; in a kind of detached way he enjoyed what he was doing. “I guess I’ll keep on,” he said, “until I get too old to hope.”
The woman didn’t move.
“Drink your whiskey,” Hadley said.
Dutifully, like an abandoned child, s
he lifted her cup and drank.
“Fine,” Hadley said, satisfied. He drank more himself; the whiskey went right to the bottom of his stomach and settled there, a hard ball that made him ill. It was going to be that kind of drinking: nausea and irritability. No escape for him; as he drank, his brain became even more clean, his thoughts cold and hard-etched. The room took on a metallic, brilliant cast; the slight numbness in his arms and forehead only made him feel more remote and detached, as if neither himself nor the woman sitting on the couch were real. As if the room itself were imitation and artificial.
“Drink,” he said again, harshly.
For an instant the woman sat gripping the bulky pasteboard cup. Then wretchedly, convulsively, her fingers clenched around it; the cardboard crumpled and gave; dark rivulets of whiskey oozed through her fingers and onto the carpet. A pool of liquid, like animal urine, formed at her feet. Her head fell forward; she slid limply down, in a loose heap.
Hadley set down his cup and knelt beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said. But still he felt nothing at all; the inside of him was frigid as iron. Putting his hand out he brushed her dark auburn hair back from her eyes. “I don’t mean it. I’m tired.”
She nodded.
“And it’s this damn stuff.” He stood up, grabbed the cup of whiskey, carried it to the door, and tossed it outside. The cup splattered against the steps; he slammed the door and turned back to Marsha.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Will you get me my purse? I put it on the dresser.”
He found her purse and handed it to her. Marsha wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and sat clutching her handkerchief.
“Do you want to go back?” Hadley asked her.
“Do you?”
It was a good question. But he had already thought out his answer; he had known how he felt before he left the store. “No,” he said. “I’m not going back. I’m going through with this.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. She got unsteadily to her feet and turned toward the bathroom. “Excuse me. I’ll be right out. Please.”
He let her go, and she closed the door after her.
When she came out she was smiling. She had washed her face and put on a little makeup. But her eyes were swollen and red; her lips trembled as she approached him. “I guess I don’t look very appealing,” she said pathetically.
“You look good enough,” Hadley answered noncommittally. She had brushed her hair and put on some kind of scent; cologne, probably. Or perfumed deodorant. He didn’t especially care; to him, the woman was an empty, depersonalized shape without particular attraction. He was conscious of the core of resentment he had carried as long as he could recall; beyond that there was not much else. And the resentment itself was not something he completely understood, or controlled… It did not seem really to be his sole property.
Wistfully, Marsha said: “Would you do something for me? As a sort of present?”
“What is it?”
“I wish you’d kiss me first.”
Hadley smiled. “You’ll do. Bring your lunch pail.”
“What does that mean?”
“An Army phrase. It means—” He put his hands on her thin shoulders. “That’s difficult to say. In this case it means that you make me feel a little ashamed.”
Marsha uptilted her face, and he kissed her briefly on the mouth. Her lips were cold and moist, and faintly sticky. In a moment her arms closed around his neck; she pulled him down against her hungrily. Without her pose of cynicism, without the haughty, erudite manner she had first met him with, the woman was frail and slight; he no longer felt any of the awe he had once felt. For an interval he allowed her eager hands to dig into his hair and scalp; then he broke away and turned his back.
“Not the couch,” he decided. “There’s a little sort of bed that slides out; it’s more comfortable.”
“All right,” she said hopelessly.
They slid the bed out from the inner workings of the couch. In the dresser Marsha found sheets and blankets. Carefully, intently, she made the bed; the sheets were crisp and starched and perfectly white.
As she straightened up, Hadley snapped off the lamp. The room dropped into darkness, except for the gleam from the bathroom light filtering past the half-opened door. “Is the front door locked?” he asked her.
“You—think it would be a good idea?”
“I think so,” he said, going over to turn the bolt. “This time, at least.”
When he turned back, Marsha was sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes on him, hands gripped together. Waiting and watching, she half rose as he came back.
Hadley removed his tie clasp and loosened his necktie. “Let’s go,” he said. “Take your clothes off.”
Her fingers plucked helplessly at the zipper of her skirt. “I—,” she began, and broke off.
Ignoring her, Hadley removed his tie and then his shirt. He laid them over the arm of a chair and sat down to untie his shoes. Standing by the bed, Marsha slowly pulled her blouse up over her head. Shaking herself out of it she dropped it on the dresser and started with her skirt. Piece by piece, the two of them removed their clothing. Neither of them said anything. Neither of them looked at the other; when Hadley finished undressing he found the woman standing naked and pitiful by the bed, her thin body gleaming pale white in the half darkness of the room.
“Could—I have a cigarette first?” she begged.
“No.” He took hold of her and moved her toward the bed; she stumbled and sank down, groping for something to hold on to. “Come on; let’s not stall around.”
Marsha pushed the blankets aside with her body; she slid to the far side, against the wall, and he got in beside her. For a moment he gazed impassively down at her; under his cold scrutiny the woman fearfully drew away, legs tight together, shoulders hunched, arms folded rigidly. Finally, when he didn’t say anything, she blurted: “Stuart, for God’s sake, please stop it. Please leave me alone!”
Methodically, he reached down and caressed her. Under his hand her flesh rippled and stirred; goose pimples flashed across her belly and loins. She gave a little moan and shrank away, jamming herself against the wall until he took hold of her and firmly pulled her back.
“It’s too late to back out,” he said. “You made the bed; now get ready to lay.”
She shrieked shrilly as he pushed her legs apart and entered her; against his back her nails trembled and dug. With a brutal shove of his knee he pushed her hips back, arched her body down and her thighs high up, buttocks compressed until she panted with terror. Directly below him, her face twisted and lashed; eyes shut tight, lips drawn back until her white gums were visible, she choked and gasped, turned this way and that; perspiration rolled down her neck in large, icy drops. Hadley raised his chest as high above her as possible; gazing calmly down from a great distance he exactly carried out the intricate muscular spasms of sex, on and on, until finally the girl’s clutching fingers against his back forced him to pull away from her.
He waited awhile, smoking and watching. Marsha lay breathing deeply, eyes still shut, the sheet pulled over her. Exhausted, frightened, she turned on her side and pulled her knees up against her stomach, a strange, impressive fetal posture that gave him something to think about while he sat. After a while he lit up a second cigarette and handed it to her. She took it with numb fingers and managed to get it between her lips. Presently she sat up a little, weak and drained, gazing at him mutely and pitifully holding the sheet up around her small, pointed breasts.
Without comprehension, she watched him stub out his cigarette, take hers from her, and stub that out, too. It wasn’t until he again pushed her down and tossed the sheet aside that she realized it had only begun. Bitterly, furiously, she fought; she struck him on the chest, scratched his face, bit him, screamed and cursed and wailed, tried futilely to kick him away. Without emotion, his mind aloof and remote, Hadley separated her legs and once more forced his vast self into her protesting, despairing body. Into the fluttering cavity he pour
ed all his hatred, all the misery, the resentment, that lay like a dank, stagnant pool deep inside him.
When he had finished with her he got up from the bed and covered her with the sheet and blankets. The night was bitterly cold; it was almost one thirty. Marsha lay in a shivering stupor, breathing harshly through her mouth, her body wet and slack, arms dangling limply at her sides. She stirred a little as he brushed her hair away from her face; a quiver moved through her and a trickle of saliva appeared at the corner of her mouth.
Silently, without turning on the light, Hadley put on his clothes. He was standing by the dresser, fixing his necktie and buttoning his cuffs, when the woman spoke.
“Stuart?” she whispered.
He came momentarily over. “What do you want?”
“I guess you’re leaving.”
“That’s right.”
“In the car?”
Hadley sat down to put on his shoes. “I’ll leave you enough money to get back to town; it’s on the dresser.”
After an interval she managed to say: “Thanks.”
Hadley put on his coat and examined himself in the bathroom mirror. His face was stark, expressionless. A harsh, cruel face, older than he remembered it. The soft, puffy flesh around his neck seemed gone; the cloudy blue of his eyes had faded to a bleak stonelike color, without trace of emotion.
Turning away from the mirror, he reentered the living room and stopped to bend over the prone form of the woman. Marsha dragged herself up a little on the bed and tried to make him out; she reached up hesitantly, started to speak, wanted to touch him.
“Stuart?” she said.
“What?”
For a moment she rested silently, leaning against the wall, watching him, trying to speak, struggling to find something to say. He could see it all in her face; he stood waiting dispassionately, prepared to hear anything she had to offer.
“Take—care of yourself,” she said feebly.
“I will,” he said. And very deliberately raised his arm. Instantly, animal-like, she rolled back down; with a faint moan she crawled to one side and scrabbled from the bed, covers clutching and dragging at her. As she crossed in front of him he measured the distance, calculated her swiftly moving body, the direction of her panic, and then smashed her slightly below the cheekbone, aiming at her faintly luminous teeth.