"I'm so glad you could all come," Marian said. At that moment she was not at all glad. They were so excited. They were each expecting a version of Peter to walk miraculously through the door, drop to one knee and propose. What would they do when confronted with Fish and Trevor, not to mention Duncan? Moreover, what would Fish and Trevor, not to mention Duncan, do when confronted with them? She pictured two trios of screams and a mass exodus, one set through the door and one through the window. What have I done now? she thought. But she had almost ceased to believe in the existence of the three graduate students; they were becoming more and more improbable as the evening and the scotch wore on. Maybe they would just never show up.
The soap-men and their wives were filtering in. Peter had put a record on the hi-fi and the room was noisier and more crowded. Every time there was a knock on the door the three office virgins swivelled their heads towards the entrance; and every time they saw another successful and glittering wife step into the room with her sleek husband, they turned back, a little more frantic, to their drinks and their interchange of strained comments. Emmy was fiddling with one of her rhinestone earrings. Millie picked at a loose sequin on her evening-bag.
Marian, smiling and efficient, led each wife to the bedroom. The pile of coats grew higher. Peter got everybody drinks and had a number of them himself. The peanuts and potato chips and other things were circulating from hand to hand, from hand to mouth. Already the group in the living room was beginning to divide itself into the standard territories, wives on the sofa side of the room, men on the hi-fi side, an invisible no-man's-land between. The office virgins had got stuck on the wrong side: they listened unhappily to the wives. Marian felt another pang of remorse. But she couldn't attend to them right now, she thought: she was passing the pickled mushrooms. She wondered what was keeping Ainsley.
The door opened again, and Clara and Joe walked into the room. Behind them was Leonard Slank. Marian's nerves twitched, and one of the cocktail mushrooms fell from the plate she was carrying, bounced along the floor, and disappeared under the hi-fi set. She set down the plate. Peter was already greeting them, shaking Len's hand effusively. His voice was getting louder with every drink. "How the hell are you, good to see you here, god I've been meaning to call you up," he was saying. Len responded with a lurch and a glazed stare.
Marian clamped her hand firmly on Clara's coatsleeve and hustled her into the bedroom. "What's he doing here?" she asked, rather ungraciously.
Clara took off her coat. "I hope you don't mind us bringing him, I didn't think you would because after all you're old friends, but really I thought we'd better, we didn't want him going off somewhere alone. As you can see, he's in piss-poor shape. He turned up just after the babysitter got there and he looked really awful, he'd obviously had a lot. He told us an incoherent story about some woman he's been having trouble with, it sounded quite serious, and he said he was afraid to go back to the apartment, I don't know why, what could anybody do to him? So, poor thing, we're going to keep him up in that back room on the second floor. It's Arthur's room really, but I'm sure Len won't mind sharing. We both feel so sorry for him, what he needs is some nice home-loving type who'll take care of him, he doesn't seem to be able to cope at all...."
"Did he say who she was?" Marian asked quickly.
"Why no," Clara said, raising her eyebrows, "he doesn't usually tell the names."
"Let me get you a drink," Marian said. She was feeling like another one herself. Of course Clara and Joe couldn't have known who the woman was or they never would have brought Len with them. She was surprised he had even come; he must have known there was a good chance Ainsley would be at the party, but probably by this time he was too far gone to care. What worried her most was the effect his presence might have on Ainsley. It might upset her enough to make her do something unstable.
When they reached the living room, Marian saw that Leonard had been spotted at once by the office virgins as single and available. They had him backed against the wall in the neuter area now, two of them on the sides cutting off flank escape and the third, in front. He had one of his hands pressed against the wall for balance; the other held a glass stein full of beer. While they talked he shifted his gaze continually from face to face as though he didn't want to remain looking for too long at any one of them. His own face, which was the flat whitish-grey colour of uncooked pie crust and oddly bloated, expressed a combination of sodden incredulity, boredom, and alarm. But they seemed to have pried a few words out of him, because Marian heard Lucy exclaim, "Television! How exciting!" while the others giggled tensely. Leonard swallowed a desperate mouthful of beer.
Marian was passing the ripe olives when she saw Joe coming towards her from the men's territory. "Hi," he said to her. "I'm very glad you asked us here tonight. Clara has so few chances to get out of the house."
Both of them turned their eyes towards Clara, who was over at the sofa side of the room, talking with one of the soap-wives.
"I worry about her a lot, you know," Joe continued. "I think it's a lot harder for her than for most other women; I think it's harder for any woman who's been to university. She gets the idea she has a mind, her professors pay attention to what she has to say, they treat her like a thinking human being; when she gets married, her core gets invaded...."
"Her what?" Marian asked.
"Her core. The centre of her personality, the thing she's built up; her image of herself, if you like."
"Oh. Yes," said Marian.
"Her feminine role and her core are really in opposition, her feminine role demands passivity from her...."
Marian had a fleeting vision of a large globular pastry, decorated with whipped cream and maraschino cherries, floating suspended in the air above Joe's head.
"So she allows her core to get taken over by the husband. And when the kids come, she wakes up one morning and discovers she doesn't have anything left inside, she's hollow, she doesn't know who she is any more; her core has been destroyed." He shook his head gently and sipped at his drink. "I can see it happening with my own female students. But it would be futile to warn them."
Marian turned to look at Clara where she stood talking, dressed in simple beige, her long hair a delicate pear-pale yellow. She wondered whether Joe had ever told Clara her core had been destroyed; she thought of apples and worms. As she watched, Clara made an emphatic gesture with one of her hands and a soap-wife stepped back looking shocked.
"Of course it doesn't help to realize all that," Joe was saying. "It happens, whether you realize it or not. Maybe women shouldn't be allowed to go to university at all; then they wouldn't always be feeling later on that they've missed out on the life of the mind. For instance when I suggest to Clara that she should go out and do something about it, like taking a night course, she just gives me a funny look."
Marian looked up at Joe with an affection the precise flavour of which was blurred by the drinks she had had. She thought of him shuffling about the house in his undershirt, meditating on the life of the mind and doing the dishes and tearing the stamps raggedly off the envelopes; she wondered what he did with the stamps after that. She wanted to reach out and touch him, reassure him, tell him Clara's core hadn't really been destroyed and everything would be all right; she wanted to give him something. She thrust forward the plate she was holding. "Have an olive," she said.
Behind Joe's back the door was opened and Ainsley came through it. "Excuse me," Marian said to Joe. She set the olives on the hi-fi set and went over to intercept Ainsley; she had to warn her.
"Hi," Ainsley said breathlessly. "Sorry I'm later than I thought but I got this urge to start packing...."
Marian hurried her into the bedroom, hoping that Len hadn't seen her. She noted in passing that he was still fully enclosed.
"Ainsley," she said when they were alone with the coats, "Len's here and I'm afraid he's drunk."
Ainsley unswathed herself. She looked magnificent. She was dressed in a shade of green that bordered o
n turquoise, with eyelids and shoes to match; her hair coiled and shone, swirled around her head. Her skin glowed, irradiated with many hormones; her stomach was not yet noticeably bulbous.
She studied herself in the mirror before answering. "Well?" she said calmly, widening her eyes. "Really Marian, it doesn't matter to me in the least. After that talk this afternoon I'm sure we know where we stand and we can both behave like mature adults. There's nothing he could say now that could disturb me."
"But," said Marian, "he seems quite upset; that's what Clara says. Apparently he's gone to stay at their place. I saw him when he came in, he looks terrible; so I hope you won't say anything that could disturb him."
"There's no reason at all," Ainsley said lightly, "why I should even talk to him."
In the living room the soap-men on their side of the invisible fence were becoming quite boisterous. They gave forth bursts of laughter: one of them was telling dirty jokes. The women's voices too were rising in pitch and volume, soaring in strident competitive descants over the baritone and bass. When Ainsley appeared, there was a general surge towards her: some of the soap-men predictably deserted their side and came to be introduced, and the corresponding wives, ever alert, rose from the sofa and took rapid steps to head them off at the pass. Ainsley smiled vacantly.
Marian went into the kitchen to get a drink for Ainsley and another one for herself. The previous order of the kitchen, the neat rows of glasses and bottles, had disintegrated in the process of the evening. The sink was full of melting ice cubes and shreds of food, people never seemed to know what to do with their olive pits, and the pieces of a broken glass; bottles were standing, empty and partially empty, on the counters and the table and the top of the refrigerator; and something unidentifiable had been spilled on the floor. But there were still some clean glasses. Marian filled one for Ainsley.
As she was going out of the kitchen she heard voices in the bedroom.
"You're even handsomer than you sound on the phone." It was Lucy's voice.
Marian glanced into the bedroom. Lucy was in there, gazing up at Peter from under her silver lids. He was standing with a camera in his hand grinning boyishly, though somewhat foolishly, down at her. So Lucy had abandoned the siege of Leonard. She must have realized it was futile, she had always been more astute about those things than the other two. But how touching of her to try instead for Peter; pathetic, actually. After all Peter was off the market almost as definitely as if he was already married.
Marian smiled to herself and retreated, but not before Peter had spotted her and called, waving the camera, his face guiltily over-cheerful. "Hi honey, the party's really going! Almost picture time!" Lucy turned her head towards the doorway, smiling, her eyelids raising themselves like window shades.
"Here's your drink, Ainsley," Marian said, breaking through the circle of soap-men to hand it.
"Thanks," said Ainsley. She took it with a certain abstraction that Marian sensed as a danger signal. She followed the direction of Ainsley's gaze. Len was staring across the room towards them, his mouth slightly open. Millie and Emmy were still tenaciously holding him at bay. Millie had moved round to the front, blocking as much space with her wide skirt as possible and Emmy was sidestepping back and forth like a basketball guard; but one of the flanks was unprotected. Marian looked back in time to see Ainsley smile: an inviting smile.
There was a knock on the door. I'd better get it, Marian thought, Peter's busy in the bedroom.
She opened the door and found herself confronting Trevor's puzzled face. The other two were behind him, and an unfamiliar figure, probably female, in a baggy Harris-tweed coat, sunglasses and long black stockings. "Is this the right number?" Trevor asked. "A Mr. Peter Wollander?" He evidently did not recognize her.
Marian blenched inwardly; she had forgotten all about them. Oh well, there was so much noise and chaos in there anyway that Peter might not even notice them.
"Oh, I'm so glad you could come," she said. "Do come in. By the way, I'm Marian."
"Oh, hahaha, of course," shrilled Trevor. "How stupid of me! I didn't recognize you, my dear you look elegant, you should really wear red more often."
Trevor and Fish and the other one passed by her into the room, but Duncan remained outside. He took hold of her arm, tugged her into the hall, and closed the door behind her.
He stood for a moment peering silently at her from under his hair, examining every new detail. "You didn't tell me it was a masquerade," he said at last. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?"
Marian let her shoulders sag with despair. So she didn't look absolutely marvellous after all. "You've just never seen me dressed up before," she said weakly.
Duncan began to snicker. "I like the earrings best," he said, "where did you dredge them up?"
"Oh stop that," she said with a trace of petulance, "and come inside and have a drink." He was very irritating. What did he expect her to wear, sackcloth and ashes? She opened the door.
The sound of talking and music and laughter swelled into the corridor. Then there was a bright flash of light, and a loud voice cried triumphantly "Aha! Caught you in the act!"
"That's Peter," Marian said, "he must be taking pictures."
Duncan stepped back. "I don't think I want to go in there," he said.
"But you have to. You have to meet Peter, I'd like you to really." It was suddenly very important that he come with her.
"No no," he said, "I can't. It would be a bad thing, I can tell. One of us would be sure to evaporate, it would probably be me; anyway it's too loud in there, I couldn't take it."
"Please," she said. She was reaching for his arm, but already he was turning, almost running back down the corridor.
"Where are you going?" she called after him plaintively.
"To the laundromat!" he called back. "Good-bye, have a nice marriage," he added. She caught a last glimpse of his twisted smile as he rounded the corner. She could hear his footsteps retreating down the stairs.
For an instant she wanted to run after him, to go with him: surely she could not face the crowded room again. But, "I have to," she said to herself. She walked back through the doorway.
The first thing she encountered was Fischer Smythe's broad woolly back. He was wearing an aggressively casual striped turtleneck sweater. Trevor, standing beside him, was immaculately suited, shirted and tied. They were both talking to the creature in the black stockings: something about death symbols. She sidestepped the group deftly, not wanting to be forced to account for Duncan's disappearance.
She discovered that she was standing behind Ainsley, and realized after a minute that Leonard Slank was on the other side of that rounded blue-green form. She couldn't see his face, Ainsley's hair was in the way, but she recognized his arm and the hand holding the beer stein: freshly filled, she noted. Ainsley was saying something to him in a low urgent voice.
She heard his slurred answer: "NO, dammit! You'll never get me...."
"Alright then." Before Marian realized what Ainsley was doing she had raised her hand and brought it down, hard, smashing her glass against the floor. Marian jumped back.
At the sound of shattering glass the conversation stopped as though its plug had been pulled out, and Ainsley said into the silence that was filled, incongruously, only by the soft sighing of violins, "Len and I have a marvellous announcement to make." She hesitated for effect, her eyes glittering. "We're going to have a baby." Her voice was bland. Oh dear, Marian thought, she's trying to force the issue.
There were a few audible gasps from the sofa side of the room. Somebody sniggered, and one of the soap-men said, "Atta boy Len, whoever you are." Marian could see Len's face now. The white surface had developed a random scattering of red blotches; the underlip was quivering.
"You rotten bitch!" he said thickly.
There was a pause. One of the soap-wives began a rapid conversation about something else, but trailed off quickly. Marian watched Len: she thought he was going to hit Ainsley, but instead
he smiled, showing his teeth. He turned to the listening multitudes.
"That's right folks," he said, "and we're going to have the christening right now, in the midst of this friendly little gathering. Baptism in utero. I hereby name it after me." He shot out one hand and grasped Ainsley's shoulder, lifted his beer stein, and poured its contents slowly and thoroughly over her head.
The soap-wives all gave delighted screams; the soap-men bellowed "Hey!" As the last of the suds were descending, Peter came charging in from the bedroom, jamming a flashbulb into his camera. "Hold it!" he shouted, and shot. "Great! That'll be a great one! Hey, this party's really getting off the ground!"
Several people gave him annoyed glances, but most paid no attention. Everyone was moving and talking at once; in the background the violins still played, saccharine sweet. Ainsley was standing there, drenched, a puddle of foam and beer forming at her feet on the hardwood floor. Her face contorted: in a minute she would have decided whether it would be worth the effort to cry. Len had let go of her. His head drooped; he mumbled something inaudible. He looked as though he had only an imperfect idea of what he had just done and no idea at all of what he was going to do next.
Ainsley turned and started to walk towards the bathroom. Several of the soap-wives trotted forward, uttering throaty cooing noises, eager to share the spotlight by helping; but someone was there before them. It was Fischer Smythe. He was pulling his woolly turtleneck sweater over his head, exposing a muscular torso covered with quantities of tufted black fur.
"Allow me," he said to her, "we wouldn't want you to catch a chill, would we? Not in your condition." He began to dry her off with his sweater. His eyes were damp with solicitude.
Ainsley's hair had come down and was lying in dripping strands over her shoulders. She smiled up at him through the beer or tears beading her eyelashes. "I don't believe we've met," she said.