A Fox Inside (19 page)

She needn’t have worried about the bed side of it. It wasn’t a personal marriage and she saw that she had known that it wouldn’t be. It wasn’t really any marriage at all.

She could have moved out and got a job as a clerk in a store, except that she didn’t have any experience or know what a clerk in a store exactly did. The
phonograph
collection got pretty large, but music did not
interest 
him. He was quite content. But sometimes, when they did have guests, he watched her so closely that she could have screamed. She didn’t. If she had he would only have groomed her for the looney bin.

In her own right she had just enough money, in a legacy from an uncle that Lily couldn’t touch, to pay for the upkeep of her car and things like that. She didn’t even go away for week-ends, because she was too
dispirited
, and besides, she was learning to be afraid of him. She could not do anything about it, but she thought it best to keep a sharp eye on what he was doing. She found herself eavesdropping. There was something about Charles that evoked eavesdropping.

He was a very clever man.

She got to taking too much phenobarbital and broke down. Charles whisked her off to a doctor of his own choosing, and besides, what could she tell a doctor or what could a doctor do? The thing she liked best was either to take a drive by herself and so get free for a while; or else to wander through Chinatown or North Beach, to watch the living people she could not touch or speak to, except over the counters of shops.

In North Beach she found the damndest monument, just an obelisk, with a big plaque on it stating that it was to be opened for the benefit of posterity in 1964.
Sometimes
at night she realized that in 1964 she would be thirty-nine and wondered what was in the obelisk. Did it, like Joanna Southcott’s chest to be opened only in time of England’s peril, in the presence of thirty-nine bishops, contain revolvers, or had some eccentric put his personal possessions there?

Often, alone in her room, she wondered whether or
not Charles was in his room. She could frequently tell, for the atmosphere in the house then became thicker. She looked round her room in which he had chosen everything including, she perceived, herself.

Then, one week-end, by accident, she found out what it was that he and Lily had done. She had not said
anything
. She put the papers back. She waited a week, watching him. She had torn them into shreds in anger and then returned them to the drawer. When she at last looked at the drawer again they were gone, but he did not mention them. He went away that week-end, and the more she thought about what he had done the angrier she became. She got into her car and drove up to Bolinas after him.

She did not tell Luke about that part of it. She bit her lip and stopped talking. She rolled towards Luke and buried her head on his shoulder and felt his hands
stroking
her hair and could not help crying.

“You don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes I would wake up every night, for nights on end, dreaming that someone was there to keep me warm or love me a little, and there wasn’t anybody. I tried to pretend there was, but you can’t go on pretending forever. Sometimes you can’t sleep alone. Sometimes you can’t pretend.”

“Yes, I know.” He let her cry and she did not cry for long. She did not need to cry now. He hoped she would not need to again. She had not loved him in the past and perhaps he had not loved her then, either. It was not necessary to say so. They loved each other now.

Maggie sat up. “She could ruin us,” she said.

“Not any more.”

“She tried. She told me about it.”

“Not here,” he reassured her. “I don’t think she wants to any more. And besides, I’m not up here. I’m down south.” He realized that was not what she meant. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” Her voice was muffled against his chest. “She was pretty threatening about Charles.”

“It doesn’t matter now. We’ll get you out of this somehow and start over again. Or maybe just start.”

“Can we?”

“You bet we can,” he said. “We’d better get dressed and go back.” He released her and looked around the arena, which was much darker now without the moon, and faintly disturbing. It might have meant something to her once, but it didn’t have to mean anything to her any more. It was the past she had to get away from. She’d never had a chance to live in the present. And when he touched her, he thought maybe he could bring it off after all. He certainly knew he had to. He had wakened up alone like that in the middle of the night sometimes himself, and he thought he began to know what marriage was for: it was to save you from the middle of the night.

He helped her dress and they went back to the house.

It was still dark upstairs, but someone had turned on the hall light. They walked across the gravel towards the door. Once inside she turned to him pleadingly.

“No,” he said. “Go upstairs.” She looked at him. He smiled at her and, taking her arm, he led her up the stairs in the dim light of one wall bracket. Very
artistically
arranged, he thought, but nobody stopped them. They turned down the corridor towards Maggie’s room, the door of which was open, and a night light burning,
again artistically. He pursed his lips. Maggie looked at him questioningly.

The door to Lily’s room opened behind them. He pushed Maggie through her door and turned around. Lily was standing in the pool of light from her room. She had not even undressed.

“Oh,” she said. “Luke. It’s so late.”

“That’s all right. I’m staying.”

She glanced beyond him, but Maggie had gone into her room. “Nothing’s made up,” she said. “I’d better wake Ethel.” She looked at him with a curiously dead face and put her hand up to her forehead, to push back her hair. She seemed faintly puzzled.

“You needn’t bother,” he said. He went into Maggie’s room and shut the door behind him. He knew she wouldn’t follow him. They did not have to bother with Lily any more, but an object lesson did no harm.

I
T WAS FUNNY ABOUT POWER
, thought Luke. It moves in a world where nothing but itself exists. Even the wealthy can only hear dim echoes of public opinion, no matter how hard they listen; and the powerful hear not at all. They are protected by an isthmus; and then the sea breaks through and floods them all. The sea recedes; somebody steals the
abandoned
brick for new foundations, in another valley, where the isthmus seems firmer.

It is like this city, he thought, looking at the sullen surface of the bay. It looks firm. But when they wanted to expand it they threw all the immediate past into the water—old brigantines, round cheeses, Conestoga
wagons
, crates of disused machinery, a few dead bodies, and God knows what else besides, to push the water out. Then they build on top of such foundations, but the ground settles a little more every year and the water will flood back in time. San Francisco was a vertical place and top heavy. It might fall over at any time. Or maybe it would just rot.

He considered the breakfast-room. It was supported by four old posts twenty feet high. Cut them through and the whole damn back of the house would tumble down into the slums.

Yet the view, if anybody ever looked at the view from this room, was beautiful. Despite the view he had no desire to live in this house or any like it. Once he had had, when he was shut out of it, but now he did not want to live in any of their houses. He did not think that they did either.

He was waiting for Maggie to come downstairs and the breakfast-room was at least cheerful. They had all driven up for the inquest and they were all on edge. Even Senator Ford had come.

Luke had stayed at Atherton for several days. He had been there this morning. He had got downstairs first, rising early, when the house was deep in shadows mixed with that singularly cheerless steel grey morning light. Wandering through the house was like wandering through a furniture warehouse. He had gone into the library, as the one bearable room that looked lived in, but had then gone through the french windows for a stroll round the lawn. There were no flowers in the garden, only flowering shrubs. They were easy to take care of and Lily obviously had no domestic skills. The dew was heavy on the grass. Looking back he could see his own footsteps walking rapidly away from the house. The air was full of waiting, but he heard no birds. Morning in the suburbs came differently, heralded by a garage door sliding up into the roof, the chirruping of the milkman’s bottles, or the bellow of a generator pumping heat through a distant room.

When it was eight he went back to the
breakfast-room
and heard Ethel in the kitchen. He went to the chair at the head of the table that was clearly Lily’s and reaching under it with his foot pressed the buzzer. He
did not want to see any of them without something on his stomach. Ethel brought in coffee, tomato juice, grapefruit juice, fried bacon, and scrambled eggs. The first morning he had stayed she had served a woman’s bird breakfast, but had changed soon enough. He looked at the hot bacon, the half-drained fat still bubbling on its lean, in a silver platter, and decided that this was what Ethel must have cooked for Charles. It was clearly a country breakfast, suburban style.

It was also well cooked.

What he was trying to get round was the necessity of seeing Lily. Lily had fallen apart and stuck herself together again, but not very well, and it was uncomfortable for all of them. She seemed to have grown heavier. He heard her coming. He looked up and smiled reassuringly.

“Well, this is it,” he said.

She had made a special effort this morning, but he could see the grains of powder on her face. She did not look as though she had slept. She had brought down her bag and her coat and her car keys, as though she didn’t want to go upstairs again, and these she laid on the buffet. The coat caught on the edge for a moment and then, the fur allowing no purchase, slid slowly and then more rapidly off the polished wood and landed on the floor with a soft, animal plop. She left it where it was. He started to retrieve it.

“Oh, let it stay,” she said. She reached under the table and pressed the buzzer more firmly than he had done. “We may as well have some more coffee,” she said.

“It’s still hot.”

She shrugged. “It won’t do Ethel any harm to make some more. She’s nothing else to do.”

Ethel stuck her head through the door, saw Lily,
disappeared
and came back with a fresh pot already made, a tight smile of triumph on her face. They had gone through that routine for four mornings now. The tight smile had no effect. Lily drank four cups of coffee in a row. She pretended he was not there. It was just as well. It was what he wanted to pretend himself.

Maggie came in last. “Hello, dear,” said Lily amiably, not meaning a word of it. She had developed a dry knack of looking at them as though they had no clothes on and were lying in the same bed. She didn’t really mean anything by it: it was done involuntarily.

Maggie said good morning a little too cheerfully and slid sideways into her chair, scooping up her skirt. She was wearing black, as was Lily, and she, too, had brought her bag and hat downstairs. She placed the former on the table at her right, away from Lily. Her dress was too smart. It obviously had not been bought specially for the occasion. It did not give the right post-mortem touch of grief, but instead merely looked well tailored. She glanced at Luke and then reached for the jug of tomato juice. He watched her pour it neatly into her glass.

Maggie had changed. She had taken on the life that Lily had lost. But it would not do for her to appear too self-confident. Maybe she was awake for the first time in her life, for her aliveness had that special, self-
enchanted
quality that kittens and young puppies possess, even on the concrete floor of a pound. She reached out and touched his knee under the table. Lily stared at them both and then poured herself another cup of coffee, watching it soak through the heavy mound of sugar at the bottom of her cup. She seemed both subdued and anxious.

“All I ask”, she said wearily, “is that you behave yourselves.” It was a fragment of disapproval that had somehow lost its edge, but he could hear her honing it. Neither of them answered. Lily looked as though she was expecting something worse. He thought it was a pity about her. She must have been a nice woman once. She had the remains of a nice face.

The wisps of an old quarrel hovered in the air, like ashes, and somebody had to damp them down for a while. He did not think they would ever dry out and blow away. He realized they were all watching the clock, and having dawdled behind their food, were now rushing towards the half-hour. He dabbled at his mouth with the napkin, folded it in his lap, unfolded it hastily, and put it crumpled on the table. Lily had watched all this attentively. He looked up and caught her eye. She looked relieved. It meant he was leaving. She shifted to watch Maggie, but Maggie’s napkin had dropped to the floor and had not been recovered.

“Well, we’d better go,” said Luke, after this comedy. He got up and they all followed suit. He picked Lily’s coat off the floor and held it, while she went into the pantry to say good-bye to Ethel. She had to have
somebody
to say good-bye to. Then, in a clump, they moved through the empty living-room. There was a screech of brakes on the gravel and the doorbell rang. They stopped where they were. Lily out in front, by the sofa, and Luke and Maggie behind, but apart. The slip covers had a pattern of blue and black artichokes in flower. For some reason he found blue and black
artichokes
annoying. They all listened to Ethel grumble. They even heard her say, “Oh, it’s you.”

Senator Ford came into the room. He looked testy and sardonic, which was his customary party manner. The three of them shifted position slightly.

“Morning, Lily,” he said, as though it made no
difference
that he had not been in the house for several years. He had a trick he liked of unexpectedly picking up where other people left off. “Thought I’d drive Luke to the inquest.”

Lily merely stared.

“You’re looking fine,” he said drily. He glanced
behind
her at Maggie and Luke, and summed that up. He had a battered shapeless felt hat on his head that only gave him an unsightlier Hapsburg jaw than he possessed. Luke wondered if he still had his own teeth—he must have had, for they were crooked and nicotine stained. He talked, though, as though he had a loose denture.

“Luke was coming with us,” said Lily. “I thought he might drive. I’m so tired.” So she didn’t want to be alone with Maggie, Luke concluded, for it was her habit to do the driving whether she was tired or not.

Senator Ford grimaced. “Maggie has a licence,” he said. He gave the room a cursory glance and marched back towards the hall. Ethel had left the front door open, and he noticed that. “Thoughtful of her,” he
commented
without any particular malice that you could put your finger on.

Lily shrugged and followed him without a word. They all clumped under the
porte-cochère,
for the
morning
was cold and misty, before they separated to their cars. Ford had a battered old grey Plymouth with one front fender missing and bashed-in headlights. The chrome had been stripped away for metalwork was not
among his interests. He got into his car and waited for Luke. Luke squeezed Maggie’s hand reassuringly and walked round to the far door of the Plymouth. Ford started first, but Lily’s Cadillac soon passed them, horn honking impatiently. Ford grinned at her. The
upholstery
of his front seat was ripped and the seat was too far forward so that Ford’s long legs stuck up into the
steering
wheel. He was a fussy but careless driver. He drove as though he momently expected the dashboard to
explode
.

“What gave you this idea?” asked Luke.

Ford was humming discordantly to himself. He stopped. “Oh, I don’t know. Loving kindness, I guess.”

“I’ll bet.”

Ford watched Lily’s car receding ahead of them. “They’ve impanelled a grand jury for this thing,” he said. “It might just be misguided family pride, on the other hand it might be sticky. I thought I’d take a look.”

“Oh.”

“Grand juries”, said Ford, “are always irritable,
autodidactic
, and smug. The women love it: it gives them a sense of importance and it gives them a chance to be seen. What more does any woman want? It does not give them brains.” He chuckled. “What did you do to Lily? She looks as though she’d lost her last pup.”

“She has.”

“That won’t do her any harm,” said Ford. He started humming again. He wouldn’t drive on the Bayshore Freeway to town, because every time he picked up a paper he saw that someone had been killed on it; so they puttered up through the suburbs, among the heavy traffic, the neon signs, and the eucalyptus trees which,
considering the way he drove, were even more
dangerous
than the Bayshore. This route was maddeningly slow. Luke was anxious, for he did not want Lily and Maggie to be together for too long. Ford cursed all the stop signs. He also gazed moodily through the
windshield
.

“Used to be open country twenty years ago and now look at it. You could make the city in forty minutes in those days and now it takes over an hour,” he said. “That’s what Lily always forgot, you know: that
anybody
could build up around her, people she didn’t even know, people none of us ever knew. She might guess wrong about them sometimes. Like she did about Charles. Even that house, she can’t hang on to it forever, and I never knew why she hung on to it at all. It’s too big for her. Things get smaller. Have you pumped Lily yet?”

“Sort of.”

“I can imagine,” said Ford. “Well, you don’t know her. I do. I’ve got something at the back of my mind I might use. If I have to. They’re both lying.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that they are,” said Ford. “And you’re no fool. You know it, too. It might be a good idea if one of them told the truth a little bit, just for our peace of mind. That is, if Maggie and you are serious, and you look serious.”

“Maggie’s all right.”

“But you don’t believe she’s told you quite
everything
, do you?”

Luke was silent.

“That’s what I thought,” said Ford. He hit a
traffic-free 
space and put his foot down on the gas. The car gave a vertical leap and gathered speed, though not very much speed. “It’s like bringing in a well,” he said. “Sometimes you have to go down a long way to get water. Or a long way back. And sometimes you have to soup it up and wait for the explosion.”

“There isn’t going to be any explosion.”

“Somebody knows something,” said Ford. “I’ve got a hunch we’ll find out who one of these days. That might be inconvenient. In a way I wish Maggie had done the bastard in. It would make it a pleasure to get her out of it.”

“Maybe she did.”

“She didn’t,” said Ford. “Not that I care. And not that you should care either. Do you?”

“No, not really.”

“Now you’re lying.” Ford seemed pleased. “The trouble with you is, you’re all too young.” Having said which he concentrated on getting into town.

They got there about half an hour after Lily, but though the Cadillac stood outside the house, Lily was not there. Nor would Ford come in. “I’ll meet you at the courthouse,” he said. “Don’t feel like seeing what Charles did to the old place.” He drove off, looking determined but very old, probably to sit alone in the Pacific Union Club over his lunch. Luke went into the house.

Lily had certainly been there. He could not think of anyone else who could have filled the living-room with that many flowers. The effect was the opposite of
cheerful
. It looked like a funeral, or rather like a living-room after the coffin has been carried out and the flowers have
wilted a little. He knew what she had done. She never did anything herself. She had simply phoned up the florists and told them to send over a roomful, and here they were, jammed into every available vase, about ten of them, untouched by human hand. They were mostly blue delphiniums of an expensive length, and larkspur in appendix shades, so that the whole room was in a
morbid
purple and blue condition. The smell was overpowering. It was the stench of pollen.