Secrecy (13 page)

Sorrowfully, Bill thought, My brother married a pack of trouble, and he said, “Some people are no good. That’s it, plain and simple. No matter what you do for them, they’re just no good. Bad seed. Not from Claudia,” he added quickly.

Cliff always wanted to hear about Charlotte, but there was nothing new to tell him. She was remote, depressed, and determined to go away. At night, going home from his walk, he would look up at her window where the light was still on. She read late, and she read serious books, much poetry. Also, she had read some newspaper articles and editorials about Ted.… Bill would miss her terribly when she was gone. She was still here under his roof, and yet he already felt the bone-ache and soreness of loss.

The summer was sliding away into August before applications were made and accepted and arrangements became final; Charlotte was to leave at the end of the month. The school was two hundred miles distant. It might just as well, Bill thought, be in the antipodes. No more walks together, no more chatter at the dinner table. She was going away among
strangers with the weight of her heavy secret upon her.

He wondered that Elena could be so accepting. Brisk and cheerful, she had everything prepared for Charlotte. The proper clothes in abundance, the required booklist fulfilled, even writing paper and stamps, all were neatly packed in new luggage. A picnic lunch for the journey was ready in a basket, Emmabrown having made Charlotte’s favorites, fried chicken and apple pie.

Emmabrown is teary, Elena is efficient as she has always been, while I am just clumsy, Bill thought. I am bumbling my way through this departure.

On the ride he kept watching Charlotte. Without a doubt she was scared; everyone going away to school was scared. He tried in his usual way to lighten the atmosphere simply by breaking the silences, to remark that the days were noticeably shortening or to observe that the cicadas were unusually shrill this year and he had heard somewhere that it meant an early fall.

“Though that’s probably just another superstition,” he added.

Elena chose a picnic stop on the top of a hill looking northward into ever-rising mountains. She, too, made conversation; hers was all forward looking.

“You must polish your conversational French. So many people can read Molière and still not be able to go into a shop and ask for something. You’ll find what fun it is to travel and be at ease in another language.”

When Elena was really nervous, she had a slight stammer. He remembered how charming that had seemed the first time he heard it. Now it filled him with pity. Like him—and yet how unlike him—she was suffering. And for an instant he became an outsider, passing the little group at their country picnic, surrounded by wild lilies and Queen Anne’s lace, a pair of nice-looking parents with their wholesome daughter, enjoying a family hour together. This outsider would not see how sadly disconnected they were.

And yet, through Charlotte, they
were
connected, for all time.

“How much farther do we have to go?” asked Charlotte.

“We should be there by two,” Bill said.

She seemed relieved. Probably, she was feeling the way you do when waiting your turn at the dentist’s; you are in a hurry to get it over with. He knew that although she had wanted, had even insisted on, this great change, the last minutes would be very hard and should be made as short as they could make them.

Indeed, all went so quickly that afterward he had no clear recollection of very much except for a swirl of cars, luggage, parents, and noisy girls, a great bustle against a background of red brick, white columns, and old trees. There were a few well-controlled tears, some hugs and admonitions, these on Elena’s part.

“School food is starchy, so eat plenty of vegetables and don’t get fat. And call collect twice a week.”

They hugged again, walked toward the car, looked back, and waved. Then they got into the car and drove away. Bill’s head swam. Those girls, those other girls, had seemed, in spite of their height and their makeup, so childlike! And to his mind’s eye came again the picture of Charlotte being wheeled to the operating room. He wanted to punch the dashboard. He wanted to weep.

When, late in the day, they reached home, it was raining hard. The house was enveloped in the sound of it as they ate the supper that Emmabrown had left for them.

“Cold autumn here already,” Elena said mournfully. “Listen to it.”

Here are two people in the room, Bill thought, one hearing the dismal rain, while the other hears its peaceful rhythm.

“We don’t understand each other,” he said, feeling a vast tiredness. “I guess we never did.”

He wished they could talk openly. But, given that they had not understood each other, how could they talk openly? He wanted to ask about that man in Florida. She would only deny the whole business, though, and he would be made to seem a fool. Then suddenly the words slipped out of his mouth.

“I’ve been wondering about that man in Florida. Do you want to say anything about him?”

“Oh, he! A lightweight, a fun person, that’s all. I’ve already told you that, and there’s nothing else to say now.”

“So there really is no ‘other man’?”

“No, none at all.”

“You simply want a divorce.”

“Did I say so? Why, do you?”

Halfhearted, not sure that he was in the right, he replied uncertainly, “I believe that marriage is worth saving.”

“Any marriage?”

“Where there are children,” he began, “Charlotte—”

“Charlotte’s gone to boarding school.”

He felt his temper rising. It was almost as though, with this parrying, this game of words, she was flirting with their tragedy.

“All the same,” he said, “she needs to know there’s a mother at home.”

“A father will do just as well while I’m away, or better. She always loved you more than me.”

“She loves you, Elena.”

“Well, perhaps she does. But she doesn’t like me. There’s a difference.”

“Then maybe you should make changes in yourself.”

“I can’t. People don’t change. I am what I am.”

Her complacent acceptance of her own faults infuriated him. Because of this fool—oh, me too—but mostly because of her, this awful thing befell our child. God alone knew what Charlotte’s needs had been. Bitch, he thought, you foolish bitch.

“I saw your lips move. You said
bitch
.”

“And so I did,” he replied.

“Don’t hate me, Bill. Don’t fight with me.”

Elena got up and walked through the hall into the
living room, her heels pounding the bare floor as usual, and pounding in his ears as well.

He smothered his anger and followed her, saying quietly, “I’m not going to fight. The last thing you and I need is a battle. It’s the last thing Charlotte needs too.”

Her face was pale and shadowed. For a second she put her fingers to her lips, and he saw light glinting on the ring, the diamond, modest enough, that in the delight of a passionate first love, he had given to her. When she put her hand down and opened her lips as if to speak, she said nothing. Then suddenly, and again, he felt the warmth of forgivingness. She was what she was, and she had not asked to be what she was. There was no use in blaming her.

He often had these abrupt reversions from outrage to compassion. Maybe I need a shrink, he thought bitterly.

“So you are going?” he asked.

“Yes. Don’t look like that, Bill. I’m not abandoning you, for heaven’s sake. I never said anything about divorce. I’ll be back.”

He supposed that she really believed what she was saying, but he knew different. They had at long last come to the end. And very likely or maybe surely it was better so, after the way they had been living. Yet it hadn’t been entirely bad. He didn’t really know. From generation to generation, he thought, we move in a sort of twilight. We think we see, but there is so much hidden, so much.

“When do you want to go?” he asked.

She gave him a tentative smile, replying with a question. “Next Tuesday? Will that be all right?”

“Yes, Tuesday,” he said gently. “I’ll drive you to Boston to the airport.”

T
hey were at breakfast when Mr. Miller telephoned with the news. “I heard yesterday, very late, but I thought Claudia might gain a night of slightly better sleep if I waited till morning. Here it is: The grand jury voted to indict.”

Miller’s voice was loud enough for Claudia, on the other side of the table, to hear him. Laying down her spoon, she grasped the table’s edge and stared at Cliff.

“Will you be taking it to trial?” Cliff asked.

“Not I. Criminal defense is not in my line, as you know. The firm has a very bright young litigator who’ll be your best bet, the best in town. His name is Kevin Raleigh, and he’ll see Ted at three-thirty this afternoon.”

Criminal defense
. All the tense and terrible courtroom scenes that Claudia had ever seen on television were melded into one picture. In a hellish circle with Ted at bay in the center were scornful faces and accusing
fingers, pointing at him. For a few seconds the picture blazed; then she pushed the table away and started toward the stairs.

Cliff cried, “Where’re you going?”

“To tell him.”

“No, wait. We’ll do it together. This is killing Claudia,” he said into the telephone. “He’s killing his mother. Let me phone you later.”

From the foot of the stairs he called, “Ted? Come down here, please.”

“He’s still sleeping.”

“I’ll get him,” Cliff said somberly. “He can’t sleep this business away. He’d better pull himself together.”

Ted had been escaping reality through sleep. At night he went out and prowled, but Claudia had no idea where. No friends called. Obviously, the horrendous publicity had warned them away. She had tried to talk to him, but he had refused to listen, even though he must see that she only wanted to give him hope, to explain that people can take harsh punishments and still change, can begin a new life, that it was hard but not impossible. All this went through her head.

In his bathrobe, barefoot, Ted followed Cliff down the stairs. And again the sight of him came as a shock; defeat and defiance, in contradiction of each other, were written on his face and in his very posture.

“Sit down,” commanded Cliff. “I want you to eat a decent breakfast. Make some bacon and eggs,
Claudia. Make plenty. He can’t be allowed to deteriorate. He’ll be needing his strength.”

“Have you—”

“Yes, I’ve told him.”

It was a relief to be out of the room and to busy her hands in the kitchen. Delaying her return, she made a batch of pancakes and squeezed a whole pitcherful of fresh orange juice. Cliff can do more for Ted than I can, she admitted.

When she returned with breakfast, Cliff was saying, “You’ll be having one of the best lawyers in the state. Try to relax, Ted. Try to feel confident. I know it must be damn hard,” he added kindly. “By the way, it would be a good idea to wear a suit and tie and shave that three days’ growth.” And turning to Claudia he added, “I’ll take him. Let this be my job.”

Unresponding, Ted slumped in the chair. He had a habit now of cracking his knuckles, a new and repulsive habit that made Claudia wince. Before her eyes he was falling apart.

“Suppose you eat your breakfast while I finish mine, Ted, and you finish yours, Claudia. You need your strength too.”

“Oh, I can live off my fat,” she replied, making a weak attempt at good humor, which failed as she might have expected it to.

Quickly and in silence the meal was completed. “I’ll drive you downtown this afternoon,” Cliff said as they left the table. “But don’t worry, I’m not going in with you. This is your private business. I do want to urge one thing, though. You must tell Raleigh the
whole truth, the whole truth, Ted, if you want him to help you.”

“I tell the truth,” Ted shouted, his eyes darting at Cliff.

“No, Ted, you don’t. The accounts you gave to your mother and me are not the same as the ones presented to the grand jury.”

“Why do you believe them and not me?”

“There’s evidence, Ted, you know there is, you’ve been told. It’s childish of you to keep up your denials in the face of evidence.” Pausing, Cliff seemed to be holding something back. Then he said quietly, “You lied about Charlotte, and God knows, she had proof enough.”

“You still won’t believe that it could have been someone else, will you?”

“I can’t bear this,” Claudia said, close to tears. “It’s indecent, Ted, I don’t recognize you.”

“You see why I don’t come down here, why I stay in my room? There’s no talking to you, either one of you. I’m going back up to my room.”

Cliff called after him, ignoring the outburst, “Be dressed and ready at three.”

“I need another cup of coffee,” Claudia said. “I need the caffeine to keep me going.” And she sat for a moment musing, with the comforting hot cup between her hands. “Cliff, is there any chance of showing some psychological problem, maybe getting a doctor, I mean, so that he’d go to a hospital instead of—”

Cliff shook his head. “I’ve asked Miller and I’ve asked around. The answer is no. These boys who go
in for date rape with injuries, and that’s what this is—of a particularly nasty sort too—go to prison. Frankly, although I’m deeply sorry for Ted, as I’m sorry for any human being, even a criminal, who has messed up the only life he’ll ever have, I believe he deserves to be punished. He’s a wise-guy football hero. He thinks he’s God’s gift to the girls, especially, I’m sure, after he’s had a few beers.”

“You spoke about the lawyer’s helping him. I’m sorry if I sound stupid—I don’t think very clearly these days—but what can he do? Not that Ted shouldn’t be punished. I know that too.”

“They’ll try for a shorter prison term, Claudia.”

She saw in Cliff’s eyes that he was suffering because of her suffering. So she said resolutely, “You need a nap. I insist. Go upstairs, or go lie in the hammock and rest. You can be ready for Ted by three.”

Claudia was in the kitchen mixing the salad when Cliff and Ted came home. The moment Ted walked in, she saw that he had been crying. But not wanting to embarrass him, she pretended not to notice and spoke cheerfully.