Bodies and Souls (6 page)

Today the couple coming to dinner were relatively young and as yet childless, so the entertaining would be easy. They would sit on the porch, if it did not rain, drinking cocktails, then have an early country dinner. There would be beef stew in wine, and Judy’s homemade whole-wheat bread, and applesauce Judy had made from apples fallen from trees in the old orchard, and a pie made from raspberries Judy had picked and frozen this summer and set out to thaw last night. Now she put a white paper filter in the glass coffeepot and set the water to boil. As she turned to the antique glass canister that
held the flour, she remembered that Reynolds Houston had called yesterday afternoon and asked if he could stop by tonight. He said he would come around eight; the newcomers would have gone by then, and Reynolds would surely have had dinner. There would be enough berry pie left from the afternoon to offer him. She looked in the refrigerator: yes, she had remembered to buy enough whipping cream.

She measured flour into a red crockery bowl and began to mix in the butter she had let soften in the cupboard overnight. The room began to fill with an agreeable brightening warmth from the fireplace. She was aware of how the scene she made would look to anyone coming in: a slender woman with a yellow ribbon in her long brown hair, rolling out piecrust dough on an antique pine table while at one end of the room the fire crackled and nearby on the stove coffee brewed. How warm and attractive her room was, her family was, and perhaps this was why Reynolds Houston wanted to visit.

She did not know him well. He lived alone and kept to himself and was polite at cocktail and dinner parties, but he was not the sort of man Judy felt comfortable with. There was something chilling about such an immaculate man, Judy thought, and as she lay the dough in the pie pan and carefully crimped the edges into patterned scallops, she felt that old familiar monster, anxiety, stir and wake inside her, in the pit of her stomach, where it always lay in wait. She could not breathe. Why had Reynolds Houston asked to come tonight?

It could not be because of a simple desire for the company of his fellow man. He had almost nothing in common with Ron, except for the few committees they served on. Perhaps something was wrong. But what could possibly be wrong? Reynolds Houston had no connection with her life that she could think of. Still, the anxiety was now fully aroused within her, and greedy and powerful in its arousal. It bloomed inside her, like a malevolent cloud, filling the cavity of her stomach and chest relentlessly, pushing her breath away. There was no room left inside her for air. Something was wrong. She knew it, and could not get her breath. She gripped the edge of the pine table with both hands and shoved her chin down into her chest to stifle a scream. She gasped, trying to pull air into her lungs, but the anxiety had mushroomed within her and was billowing upward now, blocking her throat. She could not let her son and husband see her like this.

“It’s okay,” she whispered to herself. “Judy, it’s okay. Just give yourself a minute. You’ll be okay.”

It was only a matter of steps from the kitchen to the half-bath off the hall. She
kept the Valium in the linen closet in here, with sanitary napkins and tampons and other things the men in her family would find, if not embarrassing, at least not of interest. She kept the Valium in an old Midol bottle next to a small brown prescription bottle which also contained Valium: if anyone cared to check, it seemed the Valium bottle was seldom opened. She took two blue pills out of the Midol bottle and swallowed them immediately—long ago she had taught herself to swallow pills without water. Oh, Valium, dear, sweet,
blessed
Valium, how she loved it. She knew the drug was a crutch, but the important thing to keep in mind was just that: that
she knew
she was using it in just that way. She was in control of it. She believed quite firmly that in this case self-knowledge provided sufficient exoneration. She did not believe she was addicted to Valium—she would only be truly addicted if she were not aware of her addiction. As long as she was aware of the frequency of usage, she had the usage under control.

Besides, she had been using the drug for years under the supervision of a highly qualified and respected psychiatrist. She saw him only once every few months now, but she had been going to him regularly for seven years. He knew almost everything about her there was to know, and he agreed with her that until both her children were grown and gone away, a moderate, controlled use of Valium was sensible and even necessary. He did not know what he did not need to know—that Judy also had a prescription for it from a local doctor for her bad back. And another source—an old school friend.

Even at eighteen, Judy had been sophisticated enough to realize the possibilities inherent in forming an alliance with such a shy, homely, lonely girl as Katrina Brouwer, who lived down the hall in Judy’s dorm at college. Judy had made it a point to be kind to Katrina, and if her friendship was premeditated, calculated, it was still the best Katrina was to get. Katrina went through life with an attitude that put people off—she was too modest and shy. When she graduated from college, she went back to the poor New England city she had come from, lived with her mother, and worked as a receptionist in a doctor’s office. So it was easy for her to call in prescriptions to the local pharmacy for a nonexistent patient, pick up the prescriptions herself, and mail them to Judy. Judy always reimbursed Katrina for the cost of the postage as well as the medicine, and she also remembered to send her gifts and cards on the appropriate holidays. In addition, Katrina had the pleasure of receiving the intimate confidences of another living human being.

“Oh, Katrina, you are so kind,” Judy would say during one of her phone calls. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Londonton is so small, and I know all the doctors
personally, and the pharmacists—well, if I took one Valium, everyone in town would know it and would wonder about my private life. It would be such a strain. This way, no one knows but you—and we are too close to judge one another.”

Perhaps Katrina would have judged Judy had she not been under the illusion that the Valium she supplied Judy was the only Valium Judy ever took. But what did it matter what Katrina didn’t know; in this case the illusion did everyone nothing but good. Katrina had a friend and the satisfaction of knowing she was helping a friend; and Judy had her Valium.

Judy had her Valium, and in the evenings she had her vodka-and-tonics or scotch-and-waters, and sometimes at lunch she had her wine. Still she did not think of herself as addicted. She never, ever lost control. The alcohol, like the drugs, helped her
keep
control. And in a life with a façade as flawless as Judy’s, control was essential.

And control was flowing back into her body, she could feel it in her blood. That blessed calm. She slumped against the bathroom wall, closing her eyes for a moment, taking deep breaths, shaking her head in wonder at herself: How could she continue to let such insignificant things upset her? How silly she was! Reynolds Houston was alone and winter was approaching, and he was probably only feeling that human need to reaffirm human contact against the coming darkness. She checked her face in the mirror: she looked normal, quite pretty and composed. She went back out to the kitchen to finish the pie.

Now, here she sat in the sanctuary of the church, studying Reynolds as he read the Scripture lesson. She had known she would see Reynolds at church, so she had fortified herself with another Valium before leaving the house this morning. By now the drug did not so much flow through her as appear to flow around her, screening her from anything that could cause pain. She felt wrapped around by a gauze as clear as air, as impenetrable as iron. She felt beautiful, in a sturdy and respectable way. It pleased her to think how she must appear to the other people around her: a slim, strong, perfect woman, with a family that anyone would envy. She knew that no one could have been a better mother, wife, woman. And what did it cost her? Nothing. She did not drink so much that her health was impaired, and although the gloomy newsmongers, looking for something sensational, occasionally claimed that Valium might cause cancer, she knew better than to take them seriously. If Valium were harmful to human beings, why, it would be taken off the market. No one else in the world knew that she indulged in her helpful little habits, and
she looked upon the drugs with gratitude. They helped her make her life pretty, and what could possibly be wrong with that? Life was difficult; life was hard; the world needed people like Judy to move through it with serenity and generosity and grace. Actually, she could think of any number of people in this very church who would do well to start improving their lives by taking nature into their own hands.

If she turned her head ever so slightly to the left or right, she could see someone who was anxious, disorganized, not pretty, someone whose spirit was cramped by the hardships of life; it showed in the person’s face. Such a person would be much better off for the use of drugs, and would certainly be more presentable.

For example, Leigh Findly. Sometimes it wrenched Judy’s heart to see Leigh come into the church with her daughter. Judy felt no special sympathy for Leigh—as far as Judy could see, Leigh was a silly woman who had managed to get herself divorced from a charming and intelligent man. But Leigh considered herself an artist, or so the story went, or as much of the story as Judy had been told by mutual acquaintances. Leigh considered herself an artist, and her husband had been too demanding, expecting her to do such monumental tasks as cooking regular meals and doing the laundry, so she had asked him to share the housework, and naturally he had gotten a divorce. After all, he worked at a real job and brought home the money and while some people might call the pots Leigh made valuable, they didn’t, as far as Judy knew, bring in real money. Judy felt sorry for the husband—or
had
felt sorry for him; it had all happened years ago. He had quickly remarried and moved away. She felt even sorrier for the child, an eighteen-year-old girl named Mandy.

In the first place,
Mandy
—what a name! Judy had read in the church directory that Mandy’s real name was Amanda, and she wondered why on earth Leigh didn’t call her daughter
that
instead of using such a tacky nickname which conjured up images of servant girls. Mandy was a pretty girl, with long, thick blond hair that Judy would have loved to see put up in a classy French twist. But from the looks of it, Leigh Findly never reminded her daughter to put her hair up, or even to comb it. How many times they had come rushing into the church at the last minute, their clothes aflutter, Leigh’s face uncomposed, her eyes darting here and there, looking for a place to sit, and then breaking into a grin when an usher approached to seat them. What a way to enter church! Then Leigh and Mandy would sit, whispering and grinning and shuffling, taking off their coats or sweaters and turning to the right page in the hymnal, or looking for a tissue in Leigh’s
purse—whatever they were doing, they did it in such an obvious way, as if they were a pair of birds settling into a nest. Judy always studied Mandy and owned that the girl did not look unhappy. But she did look unkempt, and that was never necessary. Perhaps Leigh thought that wearing such shabby clothes gave her an artistic air, but that was no reason to let her daughter dress that way. Sometimes when Mandy entered the church in sneakers of all things, or a sweater that was missing a button, Judy wanted to rush to the girl, snatch her from her mother’s side, close Mandy up in a protective embrace, and say, “It’s all right. I’ll take care of you. I know how you’re suffering!” For if Judy could know anything, it was how a teenage girl could suffer.

But this line of thinking was courting disaster, and Judy looked away from Leigh Findly’s obvious fluffy head. It would not do to think of mothers and daughters today. She needed the tranquilizing sight of familiar, like-minded people whose lives reaffirmed her own.

Discreetly, so that she would not insult Reynolds by not appearing to attend to his reading, she gazed around at the heads in front of her, searching for consolation. The heads that were white or gray or bald she dismissed—nice enough people, but old: they did not count.

The Vandersons kept her attention for some time; she studied Mrs. Vanderson especially, and was torn between admiration and disgust. They were such snobs, the Vandersons, true old-New-England-family snobs, the worst kind. Jake Vanderson was president of a paper-manufacturing company that had been in his family for generations; as president he really worked very little. He didn’t need to work, because the wealth that had been handed down to him by his ancestors was more than any one family could spend in a lifetime. He spent his time traveling—“for the company”—to places such as Bermuda and St. Tropez and Geneva, and his wife Lillian accompanied him. When they were in Londonton for any length of time, Lillian headed up charity committees and gave elaborate parties for their friends. Everyone talked about these parties—they were so clever and lavish. Judy and Ron had never been invited to one of these parties, and this was a source of irritation and even grief in Judy’s life. Oh, the Bennetts had been in the Vandersons’ house, but only for the charity parties—and those did not count socially. It was to one of the frivolous theme parties—the disco party, the F. Scott Fitzgerald party, the Halloween masquerade party—that Judy wanted to be invited; she didn’t hope to be included in one of the intimate little dinner parties. Lillian Vanderson always greeted
Judy and Ron with perfect friendliness: “It’s so nice to see you,” she would say, “and how is that handsome son of yours these days?” But she never invited the Bennetts to any of her parties—and Lillian and Jake had never attended any of the Bennetts’ parties in spite of Judy’s consistent invitations. The Vandersons’ excuses were always impeccable and given with the utmost kindness, but Judy would still take their refusals as yet another private defeat. What were they doing wrong? she wondered. Sometimes she dreamed of asking:
Why
don’t you like us? Why won’t you include us? What can we do? Every time she heard from another couple about one of the Vandersons’ parties, her mouth went sour with bitterness. Who did they think they were, to snub the Bennetts? She and Ron had gone to the right schools, they had enough money, they wore the right clothes, they sent their children to the right schools, they attended the right church and gave to the right charities. They ran with the right social set, shopped at the right stores, read the right magazines and newspapers, voted for the right party. They were attractive, affluent, pleasant, genial, responsible, and well-liked members of the community. Why did the Vandersons leave them out?