Aha: Wife in London, mistress in Oxford. I see what he’s aiming for. R and R no matter where he is.
“Your turn.”
My turn.
“My name is Dolores Durer. I’m a professor of English at Emmings College in Boston. I specialize in the Renaissance.”
Actually I specialize in grief. I was apprenticed to it early by my mother, who was apprenticed to it by hers. You might call it the family business.
“I got an NEH—a federal grant—to come to England and do research on a book I’m writing. I work mainly in Oxford, that’s why I’ve taken a flat here. But sometimes I go to London, to the British Museum, and work there. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past couple of days. That’s why I was on the train….”
“Are you married?” He asked this with a special attentiveness.
“No. I was once. I have two children. And you?” She tried to seem indifferent.
“Yes.” The look, the tone: she had known them before. Reluctant, apologetic, sad: intended to convey: poor me. I don’t want to burden you, but it’s a terrible marriage, but I can’t leave because of the kids because she depends because it’s my third and I want to give this one a chance because because because…. But I am not happy, not happy at all.
“Do you have children?”
“Four: two boys, two girls. The oldest is twenty-three, the youngest is thirteen.”
“My son is twenty-two. My daughter is twenty-one.”
There, that’s done with. Name, rank, serial number. And the worst part over with: Yes, married.
He got up and went out into the hall and brought his suitcase into the bedroom. Surely he wasn’t intending to move in! He laid it on a chair and opened it and rummaged around inside. He came up with a brown paper bag containing a Scotch bottle. “Care for a drink?”
“Sure,” she smiled and he went into the kitchen to fix drinks.
And if I had said Yes, married? Would he have backed off? They used to call it honor, but it was actually territoriality: don’t poach on another man’s preserve. Doesn’t matter what you do to women, though. Oh God. Why did I do this? I’m getting into that all over again, into the anger, the resentment….
He came back and sprawled at the foot of the bed, facing her.
“It’s not that I don’t like being next to you. But I want to see you, see your face,” he explained, leaning toward her to hand her the drink.
Oh and I too. I too. That’s why…
“Where do you come from? in the States,” she began.
“I was born in a little town in Ohio, my father ran the local hardware store and dabbled in local politics. He was a roaring boy, that’s what my mother called him. High-spirited, full of jokes. My mother had been an English teacher, but was forced to resign when she got pregnant. I’m the eldest, I have a younger sister and brother. Later, she went back to work as a librarian. She was the only one, I mean, there was only one librarian and a couple of college kids who worked part time. The town library was a nice old white house that had been converted. I still like it better than the new glass-and-steel places. It had odd little rooms, alcoves, always a surprise. And my mother turned that job of hers into a real drama. She was always giving battle to someone. Every night, it seemed, she’d have some new tale in the ongoing saga of Mame Morrissey to defeat the forces of ignorance and philistinism. She’d recount with relish her heroic struggle to get one more book on the shelves, or to keep one there that had shocked someone of importance, or to get some money to run the damn place. I think they expected her to heat it and light it on her housekeeping money.”
Something they wouldn’t have expected from a man.
“I did the usual things—high school, the army for a couple of years. They sent me to OCS and by the time I was finished, the war was just about over. At the time, I was disappointed. Maybe I still am.”
“You think war is fun?”
“Well,” he shifted his body, “it can be, you know. For some people, anyway. I had a great time in OCS—the camaraderie, the closeness, the drinking sessions, the particular kind of joking. It brings men together, you know?”
Yes. Too bad you need a war to do it. Need a war to cry for each other. To love each other.
“Yes, I understand.”
“After the army, I went to college—Ohio State—and then to Columbia for an M.B.A. I got married just after I got my degree. Got offered a job in Dallas, hotshot job for a green kid, well, I wasn’t quite a kid anymore. We moved out there. After that, it’s just the usual routine. You know, a couple of kids, a promotion, another kid, a move to another job, that one was in Minneapolis. We lived there for a few years, had another kid. Then I got an offer from IMO and we moved to New York. I’ve been with them for about fourteen years. We live in Scarsdale, in one of those houses that pretends it’s English Tudor. But it’s comfortable and it has nice grounds, and Edith likes it.”
Edith. The most beautiful name in the world.
“And Edith is in London?”
“No.” Looked for a cigarette, looked away from her. “She stayed in Scarsdale. Mark’s in his last year of high school, we didn’t want to disrupt him. He’s president of his class, captain of the basketball team … you know.” He smiled, proudly.
I know.
“And Jonathan’s still a kid, only thirteen and in junior high. Just beginning to become peer-conscious.” He grinned again. “It would be a bad time to move him.”
“Yes.” No mention of his daughters.
“Well, that’s my life story, ma’am.”
“And what about your daughters?”
“Oh, they’re super! Really super! Leslie’s in college, in her last year. She’s very apt mechanically, I’d like her to go to engineering school. And Vickie,” his face lighted up even more, “is terrific! Really bright. She has a master’s in biology, she’s interested in microbiology. She works in a lab outside Boston, she has her own little car, she shares an apartment with some other girls, and from the sound of it, they have a ball all the time. She’s just great!”
President of class, captain of basketball team, peer-conscious—read popular—engineering college, microbiology, super, great, terrific, wonderful healthy wholesome American kids, Momma stays at home to keep them that way, Daddy hides his affairs to keep them that way, American dream, the right life. House in Scarsdale where they never have to meet those who are not their own kind. Stability, it’s called. I’ll bet they’re Episcopalians and go to church. Oh, it’s all marvelous if you get to be the Daddy, not so great if you get to be the Mommy, but some women like it, maybe she does, Edith.
“And does Edith work?”
His face changed, she couldn’t tell how. “No. She has hobbies. Paints, does needlepoint, you know.”
I know.
“So, come on, now.” He grabbed her foot. “Tell me about you.”
What should Cordelia speak?
“I live in Boston, Cambridge, actually. I was born in the area, I’ve lived there all my life. Momma sold real estate. Poppa drank. He was fun though, he liked to play. I felt very close to him….” Her voice drifted off.
Don’t get into that now.
“They got divorced when I was twelve, and Momma and I moved to an apartment in Allston. I’m an only child, and Momma gave me all she had—in terms of energy, attention, affection…”
You might say she drove you. But you might also say she worked like a goddamn slave, day and night.
“We didn’t have much money, but I was fairly bright in school, and I got a scholarship to Radcliffe. I majored in English, I always loved literature. I met Anthony at a party in Boston—student party—when I was in my junior year. He was at BU then, graduated before me. We got married after I graduated. I got a job, I was going to save money and go for a Ph.D. There wasn’t money for graduate fellowships for women in those days. The best job I could get was as a clerk-typist. I remember I earned thirty-five dollars a week. I tried to save fifteen, but … well, before
long I was pregnant, and then…. well, you know, the usual thing. I was bored because I didn’t do anything else but take care of the kids, but I liked taking care of the kids. I really enjoyed them. And, I suppose, I wanted to mold them. Make them into what I thought they should be. It seemed to me a major project, fool that I was,” she laughed.
“Why is that foolish?”
“Because you can’t do it! Surely you must know that!”
No, he doesn’t. President of his class, captain of the basketball team, engineering school, microbiology….
“Well, anyway, I couldn’t do it.”
“I’m sure your children are wonderful,” he said, squeezing her foot.
She gazed at him. “Anyway, when Sydney—my youngest—was about two, I went back nights for a Ph.D. To BU. Can’t get a doctorate nights at Harvard. And then I got it and I began to teach, and I’ve been teaching ever since. I got tenure at Emmings a few years ago. I’ve had a couple of books published.”
“Really? What about?” Eager.
“The Renaissance. My first book was on the underlying meaning of the moral images in the great poets—Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton.”
“Oh.” His face closed down again. “I’ve read Shakespeare, of course. I read a little Milton, but recall none of it. My favorite writer of that period is Bacon, Francis Bacon.”
Of course. Would be. Francis Bacon, the great experimenter, believed in science, believed in spreading the word, overcoming medieval superstitions. Beginning of scientific world, popularization, industrial revolution. Yes.
“The one who caught cold and died because he was experimenting with freezing food and went out into the snow to freeze a chicken?”
He laughed. “The one.”
Her back hurt and she realized she was hunched over more than usual. She pulled her shoulders back.
“And what did he do? Your husband?”
“He had a series of jobs, couldn’t find what he liked. He went into the mail-order business with his father, finally.”For years and years of discontent, he dallied while you played patient wife and worried about money: yes, I understand, Anthony, of course you should find something you really enjoy. After all, you will have to keep doing it for the rest of your life. Until Daddy got impatient and scooped him up: you’ve got to settle down, boy, you’re a father.
“I wasn’t happy in the marriage, and we got divorced. The kids and I moved to Cambridge—we had been living in Newton. And,” she shrugged, “life went on. Both the kids went to Emmings. Tony’s a musician, he plays about five instruments, but prefers the guitar. He’s very talented. He works in a band out on the West Coast, in Berkeley. Sydney’s a poet, also very talented, I think, although she’s younger and it’s more difficult to tell. She lives in a commune in the country, up in New Hampshire. Two artists. Don’t know how I ever produced that. But I suspect Anthony had an artistic nature. He was never trained, his family had no sympathy with the arts, but I think he’d have liked to be a writer or a musician.”
No need to say that neither of your children ever even finished school, that they are dropouts, dropouts from life as well. They wander the hills barefoot, both with their arms around women. No, that would shock him, he wouldn’t know what to say.
Victor was gleaming at her. “It is pure miracle that you were on that train.”
Yes. I know. Lovers’ favorite game: when did you first notice, what was it about me, how could you tell I was wonderful?
But she gleamed back. “It’s a miracle you were.”
He reached for her hand and she gave it to him.
He kissed it, then looked up at her almost shyly. “You know … I don’t want you to think … I don’t, I really don’t go around picking up women on trains.”
She laughed.
“In fact, I had just … really, just yesterday … oh, there are these girls in my office, and I was thinking about, but then I thought, well, I decided, really, you know you decide things but then things sort of drift into your mind, and I decided again, once and for all, that I wouldn’t, wouldn’t have an affair.
“And then I saw you sitting in that compartment. I saw you from outside and I absolutely had to come in. And then I couldn’t keep my eyes off you….”
Oh, don’t, don’t hymn me. Beautiful, alluring, all the words we use to exalt something that is probably mechanical—electrical, chemical.
Oh, do, do, I want to hear. What was it, when did you first notice, how could you tell I was wonderful?
“Good God, why?”
He gleamed at her with intensity. “Don’t you know how beautiful you are?”
She shrugged. “There are lots of women more beautiful.” See how he lies now.
“Probably,” he said, and she smiled. “But there was something in you—I don’t know what it was—that drew me. But I really didn’t want to do it. My head didn’t want to. If I’d wanted to, I’d have spoken to you, tried to get to know you, tried to set something up. But I didn’t want to and I determined I wouldn’t. But I couldn’t control myself. I kept feeling what I was feeling. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. And … it shook me up. And I kept thinking you must know what I was feeling, and then calling myself an idiot because how could you possibly know? And I kept expecting you to take control at some point, to rap me on the knuckles and say down, boy. Or something….”
He sighed and leaned back and smiled at her in deep contentment.
“But you didn’t. You didn’t say a word, damn you,” he grinned. “You could have said …”
“Beastly weather, isn’t it.”
“Yes! Something! You could have turned me off, you know, if you’d wanted to.”
“Could I?” She grinned wickedly at him.
“Oh, you knew! You did know!” He slapped the bottom of her foot, lightly. “But you know, I was also afraid you would—say, beastly weather or something like that. In a prissy schoolmarm voice. Or look at me sourly and denounce the Daily Mail.…”
“Is that what you were reading? I should have!”
“But I hardly expected it from you, with your hair down and your cigar and that snotty snazzy look you have. And your clothes!”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Laughing.
“Nothing, nothing! But they’re hardly what my schoolmarm would wear. An Indian shirt and six strings of beads? I counted them!”
They laughed together, a low deep chuckle, pleased and contented.
“And then I was terrified you’d get off at Reading, or that someone else would get on and ruin everything, and then I thought that was exactly what I wanted, that everything be ruined, that we go our separate ways and just remember a chance encounter with someone who looked appealing. It happens all the time, after all….”
Dolores was watching him tenderly. He’s like me. Maybe he’ll understand me.
“Sometimes I felt that even though I wasn’t doing anything, I was going too far. And then I’d think that you were going to walk off the train into the arms of some waiting man, and I’d never see you again. And I don’t know why, but that felt … unbearable.”
His eyes appealed to her for understanding. She looked at him for a moment, then pulled herself up and across the bed to where he was lying, and took him in her arms.
2
THEY ATE EGGS AND bacon, which was all there was in the house. They had set the rickety kitchen table because the table in the sitting room was covered with Dolores’s notes. She was wearing an old velour robe, a man’s robe that the children had given her a few years ago when she complained about the cold and the scantiness of women’s robes and their exorbitant prices. It was a little big for her in the shoulders, but she felt luxurious in it, all that fabric, deep pile, easy lines, nothing pulling or constricting or gapping when she moved her arms or her body. It had lots of room, easy room, and she loved it. Her hair hung loose and fell over her face when she bent forward.
Victor had put on his trousers and socks, and was padding around the
kitchen trying to figure out where things might be in this odd little room. They had turned the radio on to the BBC, which was playing Prokofiev. Dolores hummed with it, to Victor’s amusement, since she frequently went off-key.
“I can hear it in my head, I just can’t get it out!” she defended herself, laughing.
Victor spent some time figuring out how to work the toast rack, and being slightly shocked by the British, who were so advanced in so many ways, but had yet to adopt the electric toaster. Dolores pointed out that they did have the electric kettle, which was far faster than any American kettle, but Americans had yet to adopt that. Victor had a number of reasons to explain that, among which was that electric kettles probably used more energy than ordinary kettles. She put her hands on her hips and stared at him, amused and challenging.
He put his hand up. “Okay, okay, you’re right.” He turned the toast “I’ve only been here two weeks, and I’m still a hard-ass American, I guess.”
She put her arms around his waist, standing behind him, and laid her head against his back. “I think you have a nice ass,” she said.
He howled. “First time I’ve ever been told that!” Laughing.
“Mmm. But I’ll bet you’ve told it plenty, though.”
He turned to give her a snarky look. “And what about you, huh? I’ll bet it’s been both ways for you.”
“Oh, not for years,” she said airily, pouring the coffee. They sat down. The table rocked. Victor got up and fished in drawers and shelves, poked into little jars.
“What are you looking for?”
“Something to prop up this table leg.” He returned with a paper matchbook, tearing off its cover.
“It won’t last,” she warned as he placed the folded cardboard under the table leg.
“It’ll last long enough so that my eggs don’t scramble on the plate.” He creamed his coffee. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long have you not been told and not told that?”
Both of them giggled.