“Enough,” says Nick. “Thanks to Peggy, I’m one of the idle rich. For now at least.”
Alice frowns, more in confusion than disapproval. The invisible wife has still not returned. Would she approve of this evening out, which looks so much like a date?
Emmanuel brings a basket of warm bread and a dish of olive oil. Nick orders wine. They make their menu choices. Alice chooses the butternut squash soup and pork confit. Nick chooses the veal sweetbreads and scallops. They talk about Mabel and Austin.
“Now here’s a leading question,” Nick says. “Do you actually like Mabel?”
Alice tries to answer truthfully.
“I want to like her. I want to believe in her great love. But it’s not easy. She’s so self-centered, I suppose. But then, why shouldn’t she be? I mean, aren’t we all?”
“I think we are,” says Nick, smiling.
“Why is that funny?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to tease you. It’s just the sight of you struggling with the shapelessness of life.”
“The shapelessness of life? I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means that we want things to fit the clothes we dress them in, but they don’t.”
“Oh, right. Like, life is complicated.”
“Well, isn’t it?”
“For a moment there I thought you were saying something original.”
He gazes at her across the candlelit table, the smile lingering.
“You’re very beautiful.”
She flushes.
“Why say that?”
“I was hoping to surprise you.”
“Say that to your girlfriends. Say it to your wife.”
He just goes on staring at her, apparently not offended by her sharp response. It feels as if he’s studying her.
“You’re beautiful in the way the young Virginia Woolf was beautiful.”
“Why are you doing this, Nick?” She has to stop him. “Is this your famous technique in action? Don’t try it on me, it won’t work.”
Don’t try it on me, it might work. What fools we are. A little flattery, and resistance crumbles.
“My famous technique? No. I have no technique.”
“They just throw themselves at you, I suppose.”
“That does happen,” he says. “Doing nothing to attract people is an attraction all by itself. For a certain type.”
“I’m fascinated.”
She means to be sarcastic and he understands her, but he doesn’t seem to mind. How can he be so relaxed?
“Would it help if I told you my love life has been one long catalog of failure?”
“Would it help what?”
“Would it stop you wanting to punish me?”
Their first course arrives. Under cover of the clatter of dishes Alice reflects that Nick is right, and she does want to punish him. This is embarrassing. However he chooses to conduct his love life, it’s not her job to judge him.
She starts on her soup.
“All right. Tell me about the catalog of failure.”
“I’m not asking for pity. Just shifting your perception a little.”
“I don’t pity you, Nick,” she says.
“I expect you can guess. I make no claims to originality. The truth is that from a very young age, I’ve felt I’m alone. I’ve not wanted to be, I’ve tried not to be, but that’s how it’s gone on. For a short time, with Laura Kinross, it didn’t feel that way. But that was long ago, and I was young, and I didn’t know how rare it was to love like that. So I blew it, the way you do. Since then there’ve been others. There’ve been good times. But I’ve always been alone.”
“What about your wife?”
“My wife,” says Nick, “finances cancer research, and a scheme to promote literacy. She’s on the board of trustees of Amnesty International, and the Register of Historic Houses, and the Emily Dickinson Museum. I’m the least of her charities.”
“Oh, please.”
“Actually, she describes me as her leisure activity. In jest, of course.”
“You chose to marry her.”
“So I did.”
He stares back at her, entirely unashamed.
“I still don’t understand,” says Alice.
“Think of it as a genetic defect,” he says. “Some people are born color-blind. Maybe I was born missing some essential ingredient.”
“Except you did love Laura.”
“Yes, I did. I tell myself that. I hold on to that.”
So he’s telling her he can’t love but he wants to love.
“That line from Emily Dickinson,” she says, “ ‘I’ve none to tell me to but thee.’ Where did that come from?”
She’s not asking about the poem. She’s asking why he said it to her. He understands.
“A sense of fellow feeling, I suppose.”
“But you didn’t mean I was the one you could tell yourself to.”
“Didn’t I?”
“You don’t know me.”
“That’s true. I don’t know you at all. But I know what interests you, because you’ve told me. Do you think I talk like this with all my so-called girlfriends?”
“You might.”
“Take it from me, those conversations do not last long.”
“But then I guess you don’t want them for the chat.”
“So I talk to you.”
Great. They get the sex, I get the confession. Who’s more used here? It’s a tough call.
“Some people manage to combine the two.”
“Like Mabel and Austin,” he says. “Which is what makes them so interesting. We want to know how they did it. That’s why I’ll go to see your movie when it comes out.”
“If it comes out.”
“Come on. Have faith.”
He’s navigated them back onto safe ground. After a dangerous lurch into real emotions, the nondate can resume.
He’s tucking into his sweetbreads.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever find out how they did it,” Alice says. “Here’s one of the twists in the story. I don’t think they would ever have become lovers if Austin’s little boy hadn’t died.”
“You think they would have gone on talking love but never doing it?”
“The shackles were on him, weren’t they? Adultery was beyond the reach of his imagination. And then Gib died, and it’s as if he just rose up, like a mythical hero chained to a rock, and ripped himself free.”
“The opposite of death is desire.”
“Is that a quotation?”
“Blanche, in A Streetcar Named Desire.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“You mean even if written by a metaphor-drunk pansy like Tennessee Williams, it’s still true?”
“Oh, God. Is that how I sound?”
“He was a metaphor-drunk pansy. But it’s still a fine play. And desire is the opposite of death. That’s a big, big truth.”
“And a big, big cop-out.”
Emmanuel comes to their booth to ask if the starters are good. Nick raises one hand, puts thumb and forefinger together. Emmanuel leans a little closer and speaks in a sympathetically low voice.
“I heard about you and Peggy. I’m sorry about that.”
“So it goes,” says Nick.
“She’s a great lady.”
“And always will be.”
Emmanuel departs. Alice stares at Nick.
“What was that about?”
“Oh, me and Peggy have been in here together a few times. Peggy’s a generous tipper.”
“Nick, are you and Peggy going through a bad time?”
Now, for the first time, he’s not looking at her. His eyes on the copper glow of the table between them.
“Not anymore,” he says.
“She’s supposed to be coming home, but she never comes. I mean, I know it’s none of my business, but what’s going on? I am staying in her house. I feel really confused.”
He’s nodding, accepting the justice of her
complaint.
“I know,” he says, “I know.”
“So what am I supposed to think?”
“Does it matter what the situation is between Peggy and me?”
“No. Not to me. Except that you’re the one who gave me that Emily line. You’re the one who’s saying we’ve got this fellow feeling, and telling me all your life you’ve been alone. You’re the one who talks about big truth. And behind it all I hear is silence.”
Silence.
“You’re right,” he says at last. He looks up. He’s so handsome in the candlelight, his face so frank, his gaze so gentle. “It’s no secret. Peggy and I are getting divorced.”
“Divorced!”
“All very amicable. I think it’s come as a relief to both of us. We’re really very good friends now.”
“Divorced! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Should I have told you?”
“Well, I would have thought . . . I mean, you offered me a room in your house—naturally, because I knew you were married . . . I mean . . .”
She starts to flounder. Everything she says leads to humiliating revelations. Unnerved, she goes onto the attack.
“Yes, you should have told me! I seem to be the only one who doesn’t know. Even the waiter knows!”
Too strong. Tone it down.
“I’m sorry. I’m overreacting. It’s just that you’ve put me in the wrong. I’ve been judging you unfairly. But why have you let me? You know I was shocked by Marcia, but you never told me what was going on. You let me think you were cheating on your wife. I don’t get it. All you had to do was say, ‘It’s over with my wife, I’m single again.’ But you never said a word. You let me go on thinking you were a selfish shit.”
“I am a selfish shit.”
“Yes, but, but.” She waves her soup spoon in the air. “This changes everything.”
“How does it change everything?”
“Oh God. You know.” She’s getting into the mess again. “So what went wrong? With you and your wife, I mean.”
“You’d have to ask Peggy that.”
“What’s your version?”
“My version? I think I’d say we had a great affair and a lousy marriage.”
“In other words you screwed around.”
“Not at first.”
He seems to have no more to say.
“That’s it?”
“I’m not getting into the blame game. It didn’t work out. We’re both old enough to deal with that in a civilized way. So yes, that’s it.”
“Okay.” There’s something here she’s not getting. Several things. “So why not tell me?”
“Perhaps it suited me not to tell you.”
“But why? Did you want me to think the worst of you?”
“Perhaps I wanted to keep you out of reach.”
Alice feels giddy.
“Why?” she hears herself say.
“You belong with my past.”
With the famous Laura.
“And you’ve cut yourself off from all that?”
“That’s the way it’s worked out.”
“One long catalog of failure. Not a great result.”
“I struggle on.”
“Desire being the opposite of death.”
She has no idea what she’s saying. Is this a confession? It feels like something else, something perilously close to flirtation. She sees the way he’s watching her, and realizes he no longer knows how she’s going to respond.
To her surprise she feels a wave of tenderness towards him.
“Oh, Nick,” she says. “What an old fraud you are.”
“Am I?”
“No, that’s not fair. How do I know?”
“I don’t mind being a fraud. I’d just as soon not be old.”
“You’re not that old.”
Alice thinks of Guy, her father, and how he had an affair with a friend of hers, a girl of her own age. At school they used to call girls like that “daddy stealers.” It happens.
“I’m old enough to know what I’m doing,” says Nick.
“What are you doing?”
“Not taking advantage of you.”
“Well, fuck you.” She speaks softly so the other diners won’t hear. “There is no way you could take advantage of me. I do what I choose to do, and I don’t do what I choose not to do. I run my own life.”
“If you say so.”
They’re looking at each other all the time now, and it doesn’t really matter anymore what they say. Contact has been made.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she says. “You’re still living in a Victorian fantasyland of seduction and betrayal. The irresistible male. The helpless female, a moth to his flame.”
He gives a slight shake of his head, never taking his eyes off her.
“What do you want me to tell you, Alice?”
Tell me again that I’m beautiful. Tell me you desire me. Give me the pleasure of telling you to go fuck yourself.
“Don’t protect me, Nick. I’m grown-up now.”
“Maybe I’m protecting myself.”
“From what? From me?”
“Why not? Maybe it’s you who’s taking advantage of me.”
“To achieve what, exactly?”
“How do I know? Maybe it’s some unfinished business to do with your father.”
Alice flinches, and the intense eye contact is broken. She feels as if he’s slapped her. Then she feels outraged. Then she thinks, What if it’s true?
Their main courses arrive. Emmanuel announces them.
“For the lady, pork confit with polenta and pear glaze. For the gentleman, scallops in a chanterelle mushroom sauce, with potato purée and steamed kale. Enjoy.”
They do not enjoy. They look up from their plates and find each other again.
“Don’t listen to me,” says Nick. “I’ve no right to tell you anything. I’ve screwed up my own life. I don’t want to be any part of screwing up yours.”
“That’s agreed, then.”
Still they don’t start eating. Just looking into each other’s eyes, and knowing what’s coming, and waiting for it to be too late to stop.
Suddenly she doesn’t want to be in this restaurant. She wants to be back in his house, the house that belongs to the wife who is an ex-wife, who is no longer a barrier.
“Have you ever ordered a meal in a restaurant,” she says, “and left without eating it?”
“No,” he says.
“Is it a wicked thing to do?”
“Not if you pay.”
“I’m not going to be able to eat this.”
“I’ll ask for the check.”
This is how they know it’s going to happen, by speaking of something else. They have moved beyond the point at which she can tell him to go fuck himself.
How did I end up here?
But of course it’s been coming for days. And why not? There’s no one left to deceive. A brief adventure that hurts no one.
I’ve none to tell me to but thee.
Outside in the parking lot he gives her a hand up into the cab of his stupid truck. He keeps hold of her hand. She turns to look at him, standing there in the cold night.
“Don’t do this, Alice,” he says.
“I do what I want,” she says. “You do what you want. That’s how it works in the world of grown-ups.”
“I don’t want to do this.”
“So don’t do it.”
He gets in and starts the engine. The heater roars. They drive out onto Pleasant Street, the road that leads to the cemetery.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says.
• • •
After so much talk there are no words when they reenter the house on Triangle Street. He takes her hand and they climb the wide stairs together like children going to bed. They kiss briefly in the doorway to his bedroom. She goes in first. Their silence is a secret agreement: what they’re doing requires no justification, and will leave little trace. They’r
e alone in the big house, but he still closes the bedroom door.
14
In the months that followed the consummation of their love, Mabel and Austin met almost every day. When they could not meet they wrote to each other. They had their special times, at ten in the morning, and at five in the afternoon, when they went walking together. When Mabel was away, they thought of each other at these times. They created their own private prayer, which they spoke in unison when together.
“For my beloved is mine and I am his. What can we want beside? Nothing!”
For a time the lovers were not troubled by their partners. Sue Dickinson, still in mourning for her dead child, kept mostly to her house. David Todd struck up a friendship with a Bostonian cousin of Mabel’s called Caro Andrews, a handsome young woman who was bored by her rich husband. A house became available for rent, off Triangle Street, behind the Dickinson houses. The Todds were able to set up their own establishment at last, and bring their daughter, Millicent, now three years old, to live with them on a permanent basis. To Millicent, Austin was the family friend, a little frightening in his silences, but almost as familiar to her as her father.
In their quiet walks together down summer lanes, Austin and Mabel never tired of exploring the miracle that was their love.
“Do you ever wish,” Mabel said, “that we’d known each other when we were growing up? We could have played together as children.”
“I would have loved you even then,” said Austin.
“The grown-ups would have said, ‘Look at those two! They’re inseparable!’ ”
“So we would have been.”
“But I like it better as it is,” said Mabel. “There’s something magical about meeting someone when you’re fully grown, and knowing you’ve met your destiny.”
“Magical,” said Austin, “and almost more than I can comprehend. I think I must be in dreamland, I’m afraid to wake. It’s too much, the happiness overwhelms me, but I am awake. You are here beside me. The sweetest, richest dreams of my boyhood, and youth, and manhood, have all come true.”
His low fervent voice thrilled her as they walked.
“Dear Austin. My own dearest man.”
“When I look round the pews in church and see the good people of Amherst sitting so comfortably together, all those husbands and wives, I ask myself, Can they feel as we feel?”
“What?” said Mabel. “The Bartletts and the Bigelows and the Hitchcocks and the Hills? I don’t think so! The surprise is that they’ve managed to procreate at all.”