Barbara Greer (47 page)

There were certain places that had shaped her life, but not his. And if it meant anything, it meant only that they had both been misshapen. They had both been crippled, but by different places. She started back toward the car.

The town looked very pretty from up here—the mills, the river, the buildings scattered below almost at her feet—and, beyond, the highways stretching to Hartford, Boston and the north, and in the other direction toward New York. Yes, there was a better view from up here than there was from West Hill, or from Prospect Avenue, or from any of the garden patios she had ever stood upon, and it would have been better, she thought, to have developed this as a residential section rather than as a cemetery. She stopped and tried to picture this hill built up with houses and New England tugged suddenly at her heart, here with its dead—its alien and separate Catholic dead—outlined against its living. There was really very little difference. Both had a sense of quiet and repose. In that respect alone, she and Barney were alike. She went on down the hill to her car.

It was dusk when she reached Locustville. The sun was setting behind Sunrise Heights. She turned into Bayberry Lane and the little reflector signs—‘Sage … Bryson … Bishop … Hodgson … Greer'—sparkled in its last glimmers. She turned into their driveway and the sun gilded the rigid rooster weather-vane.

The boys greeted her wildly, hugging her knees and tugging at her skirt.

‘They've had their supper,' Flora said. ‘I let them stay up a little later so they could see you.'

At her desk, she wrote out a cheque for Flora.

‘Mr. Greer called Monday morning,' Flora said.

‘Yes, so I've heard.'

‘It was—oh, no more than an hour after you called me. He called from London, England. My, that was a real experience for me—talking on the telephone to London, England.'

‘Yes.'

‘I told him about the tragedy, about Mr. Callahan.' She lowered her voice. ‘I didn't breathe a word to the children, though. I thought I'd let you tell them in your own way.'

‘Thank you, Flora.'

‘Gone on a trip, that's what I'd say if they were my children. I'd just tell them that their uncle had gone on a long, long trip.'

‘Yes.'

‘And you can be sure I didn't mention to them, or Mr. Greer, or anybody else about that story in the paper.'

‘Oh,' Barbara said. ‘Then you heard about that.'

‘Hear about it? Goodness me, it's been the talk of Locustville if you ask me!' She stopped abruptly. ‘I'm sorry, Mrs. Greer, honest I am. What a terrible thing! And what a terrible story to print in the paper.'

‘Yes,' Barbara said.

‘Of course I've got a theory,' Flora said. ‘I've got a theory about why they write such things in the papers—not that I think a single word of it is true! Want to know what my theory is?'

‘Yes, Flora, what is your theory?' Barbara asked.

‘It's Communists. They're the ones to blame. They're the ones that print those sort of things about decent people like yourself, Mrs. Greer. They're against our American capitalistic system, so they try to print things like that—just anything they can think of—to make folks think there's something bad about wealthy folks like yourself, Mrs. Greer. Now I know for a fact that there's Communists in this town, more Communists than you could shake a stick at, and they're out to get the decent people. I could name you names, but I won't. They're the ones Mr. J. Edgar Hoover should be out to get, Mrs. Greer. He should get them and string them up by their toes. They're trying to get us all turned over to Soviet Russia, that's what they want—so they're printing dirty stories in the papers like the one about you, and they're doing all the talk that's going on in this town. That's my theory, and I said the same thing to my sister on the phone …'

‘Yes,' Barbara said. ‘Well, thank you, Flora.' She handed her the cheque.

Then, after Flora left, she played with Dobie and Michael for a while. Then she got them into their pyjamas and read to them the story of
The Little Engine That Could
.

‘When's Daddy coming home?' Dobie asked her as she tucked the covers around him.

‘Soon,' she said. ‘Perhaps tonight.'

‘Can I stay up?'

‘No. But if it's not too late, perhaps I'll wake you up …'

She kissed them goodnight.

Then, alone, she went into the living room and lighted the lamps. She still wore the black dress she had worn to the funeral, but she was too tired to change. She realised that she had had nothing to eat since breakfast that morning, but she didn't feel hungry. She sat on the white sofa. The room looked comfortable and clean, as it always looked. Indeed, it was hard to believe that she had ever really left it. Nothing was changed. Behind the fireplace screen she could see the white scraps of paper among the ashes where she had tossed them, angrily, on Saturday after tearing up the note about the garbage cans. She waited and wondered if he would come.

Later—it was nearly ten o'clock—she heard a car drive in and knew that it was Carson's taxi, and that he had come. She waited. She heard him open the front door with his key, step inside and set his suitcase down in the hall. He came and stood in the doorway. He looked haggard and tired, in need of a shave. ‘Well,' he said. ‘Well, here I am.'

‘Hello, Carson,' she said.

He came and sat down in the chair opposite her. ‘Two times across the Atlantic inside of a week,' he said. ‘A miracle of the air age.'

‘I understand you phoned here on Monday.'

‘Yes. Someone had been trying to call me Sunday night. I thought it might have been you.'

‘It was me. I called the Dorchester, but you weren't there.'

‘No,' he said. ‘I was at another place, nowhere near as fancy.'

‘But the Dorchester was on your itinerary.'

He smiled. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘That's the system. You find the cheapest place. It's one of the tricks of the trade, I'm afraid. I'm sorry—if I'd known you might call I'd have left the number with them, but I didn't think of that till later.'

‘You never told me about this system.'

‘No. It's just one of the ugly facts I wanted to keep from you. There were so many things you hated about Locustville.'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘I see.'

‘Did you think I was off in some boudoir in the West End?' he asked her.

‘Well, I wondered.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said again.

‘Woody called you then?'

‘Yes. That's why I came.'

There was a silence. ‘Can I fix you a drink?' she asked. ‘Something like that?'

‘No thanks,' he said. ‘I just had one, actually.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes. I would have been here earlier, but I stopped by the office—to explain why I was back. Jesse Talbot was there and—well, Jesse insisted on taking me out to a bar and buying me a drink. I didn't want to go, but he sort of insisted.'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘Jesse Talbot …'

‘Yes. So I sort of know the story …'

‘Oh,' she said.

‘Yes. It's—well, it's too bad, Barbara.'

‘What did Jesse say?'

He stared at his open hands. ‘Well,' he said. ‘Jesse was very nice. Jesse is a nice guy—I really like him a lot. Jesse is a gentleman. And Jesse told me, Jesse said—well, first he told me the story which I hadn't heard, though Jesse thought perhaps I had—and he told me that he didn't believe it. That nobody who really knew you, and knew me, really believes it, but, as Jesse said, that wasn't the point. The point was that Locustville is a small town and that the company plays an important part in the life of the town, and that—because of this and things like that, community relations and all that business—I would be doing a disservice to the company by staying. And he gave me the opportunity to resign.'

‘Oh, Carson.'

‘Yes. That's about it.'

‘I'm sorry!'

‘Yes. Well, I'm sorry, too, of course—but you don't need to be. It isn't really your fault, Barbara, because the point is—nobody believes the story, nobody who knows us, and I don't believe it either.'

‘Carson,' she said, ‘the point is that the story is true.'

He looked at her.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘that makes a difference, doesn't it? Especially for me—and for you. The story is true, every word of it, every word the paper said. I—' she said. ‘No—don't interrupt. I've been listening, all day, every day—since it happened—to all of them, at home, saying it isn't true, it couldn't be true, it's a terrible lie—saying it wasn't my fault, making excuses for me, blaming it on someone else, on themselves! And I'm sick of it, I can't bear it. I'm sick of all the excuses and the blaming it on others—leaping in, trying to save me and my poor reputation. Because it's true, Carson, the story is true. I'm responsible for what happened.
I killed him
.'

‘You mean you had an affair with him?'

‘Going to—I was going to. I made the date with him, to meet him at the guesthouse. Oh, at the last moment, yes—I changed my mind. When I got there, I changed my mind. It was too late then to change my mind. I might as well have done it then, because I'd really done it long before—committed adultery—because I'd been unfaithful to you, in my mind, considering it, making all the plans. Why was I going to do it? I don't know—there's no excuse. Oh, I had dozens of excuses—I made all the excuses. I told myself that it was because Peggy was being such a bitch to him, and driving him, and destroying him—and I told myself I didn't want to see him
hurt
. And I told myself that it was because I was lonely, and bored, and because you were away all the time, and because I hated Locustville so much. And I told myself it was because of the way everything has become at the farm—all of them tearing at each other's throats, like wolves, and because my father's turning into a drunkard and my mother is a shrew and Billy is a fool, and because I told myself that I might just as well go along with them as I always have, and be just as predatory and awful as they are! And I told myself the opposite, too—that I was a wonderful, beautiful, true, honest woman and that any man would be the better for my having offered my beautiful body to him. And, oh, yes. Yes, I had one more excuse. Jealousy. I called you, you see—and you weren't there. And I thought, if he's out somewhere having fun, then why can't I? But I'll tell you something else—something more important. This wasn't something recent, something that just happened. It didn't begin this past weekend. It began two years ago, when I first met him—and it would have happened then, as long ago as that—it almost happened, would have happened, one night before they were married when he and I were alone in the house one evening and you were off at Cousin Billy's house for the bachelor party, watching Billy's sex movies! It would have happened then—he was there in my room and I was all ready for it—but we were interrupted. Somebody came home! And ever since, all the time in between, we'd both been plotting, planning ways to do it, and I'd been thinking up all the excuses I had for doing it. But the thing was, there wasn't any excuse, or any reason. I wanted it just because I wanted it—the way a child wants something. The way Dobie wants something of Michael's and takes it, that's the way I wanted it. So now you see the kind of woman I am.'

He sat there, staring at her. Then he said, ‘Well—I'm glad you told me, Barbara.'

‘Yes.' She stood up and walked to the window and looked out. ‘Yes, I'm glad I told you, too. You can't believe what it's been like—listening to them, Mother, Father, even Peggy—saying that they'd never believe it as long, as they lived. Saying that their sweet, darling, beautiful little girl could never, not possibly, do such a thing. Saying it—but suspecting, I suppose, all along that it probably
was
true. Why
was
the guesthouse all lighted up, with cocktails poured, and ready for a rendezvous at midnight? But never mind, they said—it couldn't be true, it was all someone else's fault. Thank God I've told you. And don't tell me you don't believe it.'

‘You know,' he said softly, ‘it's funny, really. Do you know that I really don't remember much about him? If you asked me to describe him now, I couldn't do it. Tall, yes, and rather dark—but that's about all. When Flora told me he was dead, I thought—Barney. What does he look like? I didn't know. I guess he never made much of an impression on me. I remember him being around, there, at the wedding—all that. But I guess I never really noticed him too much. I don't believe I ever exchanged more than two or three words with him.'

‘Tell me you believe it.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I believe it.'

‘Good!' She pressed her palms against the wide glass. ‘It was just—just that I wanted him, the way a child wants a toy. And I'll tell you more—even more. I've always been like that. True, I've never, actually, physically been unfaithful to you. That much I
can
say. “Not since we were married,” as the expression goes. But that isn't because I've had any
moral
feeling about it. No—you've just been lucky. Because I've always been this way. That year I was away, for instance—that year Nancy and I spent in Hawaii—you and I were practically engaged at that point, weren't we? And you were in the Army. That year there were several. There were two Navy boys, Charlie and Charlie—the gold-dust twins as Nancy and I used to say. And there was a terrible delinquent boy who hung out on Waikiki Beach, and stole and slept with rich women for a living. And I wrote you such sweet and lovely letters to Camp Polk! And then my beach boy rang the bell and I let him in, and sent him home later with carfare and a little extra! So you see!' She turned and faced him fiercely. ‘You see what I am! I'm no different from Nancy! I'm an immoral woman! What are you going to do with me?'