The Towers of Love (28 page)

Then, “Hallo, Hugh,” she said.

“Hallo, Pansy,” he said. He closed the door behind him, and came and sat down beside her on the bed. He took her hand. “How're you feeling now?” he asked her.

“Rotten,” she said. Then she smiled at him. “No,” she said. “I guess I feel all right.”

“Good,” he said.

She squeezed his hand. “I'm glad you've come back in,” she said. “You're the only one. You're the only one I want to see.”

“Austin's downstairs,” he said. “He wants to see you.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don't want to see Austin. Only you.”

“He's in quite a state,” Hugh said. “But he wants to tell you that he still feels the same way about you. He forgives you, he says.”

She smiled again. “Tell him,” she said, “that I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful to have his forgiveness.”

“Poor guy,” he said. “I really kind of like him. He loves you so damn' much.”

“I know,” she said. “I know he does. But I can't help it, can I, if I don't love him back?”

“You could do a lot worse than Austin,” he said.

“I know that. I know I could do a lot worse than Austin. But I guess I just wanted to do a little better.”

“He's got it all figured out that you were doped,” he said. “He's convinced that you were given dope and taken against your will.”

She laughed softly. “Poor Austin,” she said. “Poor, poor little boy. Well, if you think it will make him feel any better, tell him that is what happened. I was doped and kidnapped.”

“You still don't want to see him?”

“No.”

They sat in silence for a while. Then he said, “Tell me something about this other boy.”

“Jimmy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Jimmy,” she said. “How shall I describe him? Well, he's little. He's little—like me. In fact, when I'm in high heels, we're just about the same height.”

“Yes,” he said. “Go on.”

“But he's very—he's very
strong
,” she said. “He has a very muscular build. He used to lift weights, the way you used to. Remember, Hugh, when you used to lift all those weights?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I told him about you, and about how you used to lift weights, too. He liked that. He said he thought he was going to like you, and I told him that—that he would. And he said you both could have a weight-lifting contest some time.”

“Yes,” he said.

“And let's see—what else can I say about him? Handsome? I don't know whether you would really call him handsome. But he's
nice
-looking—yes. And he has this very soft, Southern voice that I just—that I just—”

“Yes.”

“That I just love! And I guess—well, I guess that's all there is to say about him. He's very kind and sweet and gentle.”

“And he loves you, and you love him.”

“Yes. And—oh, he wants to fly jets. He's just crazy to fly jets! He wants to live in the sky.”

“Did he—” he began. “Didn't he put up any sort of fight to keep you?” he asked. “I was hoping, you know, when Sandy said she was going—that perhaps, if he really loved you, he'd put up a good fight.”

“How could he?” she asked. “She threatened to call the commandant. It was supposed to be a secret, you see. But it isn't a secret any longer.”

“I see.”

“And now,” she said, “she's told the commandant anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“She told him. She wrote him a long and very specific letter—all about Jimmy and me.”

“God, why would she do that?”

“That's what I asked her. I asked her why she would have done that. But it was too late. She'd already mailed the letter. And so that's that. He'll be dismissed, and that's the end of his career. No more jets. No more sky.”

“Why would she do it? Just out of spite?”

“Spite? I don't know. Anger, perhaps? Revenge? What difference does it make? She did it when she found out, when Jimmy told her—”

“Told her what?”

“Hugh,” she said, “I'm going to have a baby. I'm going to have his little baby.”

“Oh, Pansy. Pansy-face.”

“So there we are,” she said. “Oh, don't cry, Hugh. Crying doesn't help. I've cried myself dry. It doesn't help.”

“Pansy, Pansy …”

“Oh, how I've always hated that name!” she said. “Hated it, hated it, hated it.”

“I didn't know.”

“But it's all right if you call me that, Hugh. I don't mind it if you call me Pansy. I don't want you to call me anything else.”

After a while, he said, “What are we going to do?” The room was very dark now, and she was only a faint shadow against the bed.

“What is there to do?” she said. “There's nothing to do. We're caught in a trap, you see. Caught in a trap. You tried to get away, tried to escape once, but see? Here you are, back again. I tried to get away too, but see? Here I am, back again. We're both of us caught—for ever.”

They sat very still, not moving, saying nothing.

“Listen to that damn' waterfall!” she said. “It never stops. Out in the mountains, I still used to hear it in my dreams. I couldn't escape from it, even there. Part of the trap. Isn't it funny?”

And then she said, “Hugh, she told me about you and Anne. I'm sorry about that, Hugh. But isn't it funny? It's just the same thing, isn't it? Part of the trap that keeps us here.”

“What is it that Sandy always says? You know—how, with her children, she's never believed in letting there be any silver cord?”

“Yes. Well, in a way, she's right, isn't she? It isn't a silver cord, is it? It's a—it's a steel cable!”

“That's—that's really very witty,” he said, trying to keep his voice from breaking.

“It's true. Part of the trap.”

After a while, he stood up. “I've got to go down and get rid of Austin,” he said. “He's waiting down there.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell him—tell him I'm very grateful. Be nice to him. He's really a nice person. Just—so very young.”

“I will,” he said. “And we'll talk about this whole thing some more. To-morrow, perhaps.”

“Yes,” she said. “To-morrow. But I don't see what good there will be in talking. We're just—just caught in a trap.”

He bent and kissed her forehead. “Get some rest, Pan,” he said.

He went to the door and opened it, and in the square of light that flooded in from the hall, he looked back at her. Her hand shielded her eyes. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Close the door for just a minute, Hugh.”

He closed the door and leaned against it.

“I can always think better in the dark,” she said. “I haven't told you quite everything.”

“What else is there, Pan?”

“I haven't told you the most awful part. The most awful part is me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn't ask me what I did,” she said. “You didn't ask me whether I put up any fight or not. Was that because you already knew the answer?”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, it was really a very pleasant little scene, of course—when she came to the motel where we were staying, on Jimmy's little week-end pass. She was her charming self. Oh, overpowering, of course—but charming. Nobody screamed, there weren't any tears or hysterics or accusations. Everything was—just very civilised.”

“I can imagine,” he said.

“Yes. And when she threatened—oh, threatened in the most charming and indirect way, of course—to tell the commandant about what we'd done, when she said that she might just be
forced
to report it all if Jimmy didn't let her take me home, Jimmy said—”

“What did he say?”

“He said very quietly, ‘All right.' He said, ‘Do whatever you want, we don't care.' And he turned to me and said, ‘Pryor, we don't care, do we? The two of us are more important than the old Air Force, aren't we?' And I said—I said—”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘No, you can't let her do this to you. You're to graduate in June,' I said. And then Sandy said, ‘Of course, that's the only sensible way to look at it,' or something like that. And I said, ‘Yes, let me go home now—just until June. As long as we aren't going to be able to really live together anyway,' I said, ‘why not let me go home with her now, Jimmy, as she says. And then, in June, when you've graduated and have your commission, then I'll come back—or go wherever you go—and we'll work everything out from there.' And then I made Sandy promise that she wouldn't do anything until then, that she wouldn't tell the commandant, that she wouldn't do anything between now and then to try to break up the marriage, that she'd let us work things out on our own after that. And she promised to do that, and Jimmy agreed to let me go on those conditions, and that was the bargain that the three of us made.”

“I see,” he said.

“And then, when we were in the plane this morning, flying home—up in the sky, over the mountains—she said to me, ‘Well, my dear, that's the last you'll ever see of him.' And then she told me that she'd written to the commandant anyway.”

“She broke her promise.”

“Yes. Broke her promise, broke the bargain—the bargain that I helped make. You see how it is? What will he ever think of me now, when he finds out—he'll find out to-morrow, you see—that we've broken the bargain, the bargain that I helped make. There wouldn't have been any bargain if it hadn't been for me. I suggested it. He didn't want it. So what does that make me?”

“Maybe,” he said, “maybe we could work something out.”

“No,” she said. “Because I see now the kind of person I am. I'm not a person at all. I'm a non-person. I'm just a part of her. Part of the trap. The trap is me. And I pulled him into it.”

“You mustn't think that, Pansy.”

“It's true. The trap is me. You see, what I realise now is that if it hadn't been for the baby coming, if it hadn't been for that, I would have married Austin, just as she wanted. I would have come right back and married Austin, whether I loved him or not. What kind of a person would do that? I thought, when I found out about the baby, that that might be the single little thing that would save me, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. Just a poor little baby isn't enough.”

“Pansy …”

“You know, he was really very nice,” she said. “About the baby, I mean. I think you'd like this about him, Hugh, because—when I found out about the baby—I wasn't sure, I wasn't sure how he'd be. When I told him, I wasn't sure what he'd say. I'd heard stories, of course, about how men sometimes are—some men—when girls tell them things like that, and I was a little frightened. I thought: Will he just say, ‘Well, that's your tough luck'? But when I told him, he said—without even hesitating for a moment, he said—‘Then we're going to get married right away.' I was so grateful. Don't you think that was nice of him, Hugh?”

“Yes, it was,” he said.

“I was so happy. I thought: At last I don't have to marry Austin.”

“If only you hadn't sent that telegram, Pansy.”

“No, I don't think that mattered,” she said. “She'd have had to find out about it sooner or later, wouldn't she? The telegram just made it all happen quicker, and perhaps, now that it's happened, it's better that it happened quicker.”

“What are you going to do about the baby?” he asked her.

“Do? I don't think she's decided yet,” she said. “She says there's plenty of time to decide that. The baby makes it hard to get an annulment, of course, so she thinks perhaps a Mexican divorce. But as for the baby, she hasn't decided—you know, whether to let me have the baby, and if I have it, whether to let me keep it. But she'll decide all those things.”

“Sometimes she's so—”

“But she's right, isn't she? After all, what possible right do I have to bring a child into the world—a weakling like me? No, she's right. The baby must go—somehow.”

“But you don't always have to be a weakling, do you? Do you?”

“Yes, because it's what I am! It's funny, but I don't blame her any more. I just blame myself. Because I see now the sort of person I am, and I'm nothing. I never have been anything. Do you remember all the sorts of things we used to want to be when we were children?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to be a model, remember? Remember? I had an offer once from a modelling agency when I got out of college. Remember that? I know I'm not very brainy, but I thought I could be a model. I thought it would be fun. I thought it would be fun to work in New York—and live in the Village and wear sandals and let my hair grow long. I really wanted to do that. Remember? But I didn't, I couldn't. She didn't want me to, and I wasn't strong enough to do it by myself. So all I've done since college is to go to parties with people like Austin. And the point is, that's all I ever could do. Because that's all the person I am. Just nothing.”

“You're not just nothing, Pansy.”

“Oh, yes I am, Hugh. And what about you, Hugh?”

“Am I just nothing too?” he asked her.

“Hugh, I love you so much,” she said. “But look at us. We're both the same. We're both in the same trap, and part of the trap is us. Look at you. Your life is nearly half over, and what have you had?”

“I've had a job that I really loved,” he said quietly.

“Yes, but where is that now? And you've had Anne. And where is that now? There was someone else you loved once, wasn't there?”

“Yes,” he said, “I guess there was.”

“It was Edrita, wasn't it?”