Selected Stories (64 page)

“Not your typical Business Ad choice, is she, Mother?” said Laurence to Sophie in Isabel’s presence. He was enrolled in the one. school in the university that Sophie detested—Business Administration.

Sophie said nothing, but smiled directly at Isabel. The smile was not unkind, not scornful of Laurence—it seemed patient—but it said plainly, “Are you ready, are you taking this on?” And Isabel, who was concentrating then on being in love with Laurence’s good looks and
wit and intelligence and hoped-for experience of life, understood what this meant. It meant that the Laurence she had set herself to love (for in spite of her looks and manner, she was a serious, inexperienced girl who believed in lifelong love and could not imagine connecting herself on any other terms),
that
Laurence had to be propped up, kept going, by constant and clever exertions on her part, by reassurance and good management; he depended on her to make him a man. She did not like Sophie for bringing this to her attention, and she didn’t let it touch her decision. This was what love was, or what life was, and she wanted to get started on it. She was lonely, though she thought of herself as solitary. She was the only child of her mother’s second marriage; her mother was dead, and her half brothers and half sister were much older, and married. She had a reputation in her family for thinking she was special. She still had it, and since her marriage to Laurence she hardly saw her own relatives.

She read a lot; she dieted and exercised seriously; she had become a good cook. At parties, she flirted with men who did not seriously pursue her. (She had noticed that Laurence was disappointed if she did not create a little stir.) Sometimes she imagined herself overpowered by these men, or others, a partner in most impulsive, ingenious, vigorous couplings. Sometimes she thought of her childhood with a longing that seemed almost as perverse, and had to be kept almost as secret. A sagging awning in front of a corner store might remind her, the smell of heavy dinners cooking at noon, the litter and bare earth around the roots of a big urban shade tree.

W
HEN
the plane landed, she got up and went to meet them, and she kissed Laurence as if he had returned from a journey. He seemed happy. She thought that she seldom concerned herself about Laurence’s being happy. She wanted him to be in a good mood, so that everything would go smoothly, but that was not the same thing.

“It was wonderful,” Laurence said. “You could see the changes in the landscape so clearly.” He began to tell her about a glint lake.

“It was most enjoyable,” said Sophie.

Denise said, “You could see way down into the water. You could see the rocks going down. You could even see sand.”

“You could see what kind of boats,” said Peter.

“I mean it, Mother. You could see the rocks going down, down, and then sand.”

“Could you see any fish?” said Isabel.

The pilot laughed, though he must have heard that often enough before.

“It’s really too bad you didn’t come up,” Laurence said.

“Oh, she will, one day,” said the pilot. “She could be out here tomorrow.”

They all laughed at his teasing. His bold eyes met Isabel’s, and seemed in spite of their boldness to be most innocent, genial, and kind. Respect was not wanting. He was a man who could surely mean no harm, no folly. So it could hardly be true that he was inviting her.

He said goodbye to them then, as a group, and was thanked once more. Isabel thought she knew what it was that had unhinged her. It was Sophie’s story. It was the idea of herself, not Sophie, walking naked out of the water toward those capering boys. (In her mind, she had already eliminated the girl.) That made her long for, and imagine, some leaping, radical invitation. She was kindled for it.

When they were walking toward the car, she had to make an effort not to turn around. She imagined that they turned at the same time, they looked at each other, just as in some romantic movie, operatic story, high-school fantasy. They turned at the same time, they looked at each other, they exchanged a promise that was no less real though they might never meet again. And the promise hit her like lightning, split her like lightning, though she moved on smoothly, intact.

Oh, certainly. All of that.

But, it isn’t like lightning, it isn’t a blow from outside. We only pretend that it is.

“If somebody else wouldn’t mind driving,” Sophie said. “I’m tired.”

T
HAT EVENING
, Isabel was bountifully attentive to Laurence, to her children, to Sophie, who didn’t in the least require it. They all felt her happiness. They felt as if an invisible, customary barrier had been removed, as if a transparent curtain had been pulled away. Or perhaps they had only imagined it was there all the time? Laurence forgot to
be sharp with Denise, or to treat her as his rival. He did not even bother to struggle with Sophie. Television was not mentioned.

“We saw the silica quarry from the air,” he said to Isabel, at dinner. “It was like a snowfield.”

“White marble,” said Sophie, quoting. “Pretentious stuff. They’ve put it on all the park paths in Aubreyville, spoiled the park. Glaring.”

Isabel said, “You know we used to have the White Dump? At the school I went to—it was behind a biscuit factory, the playground backed onto the factory property. Every now and then, they’d sweep up these quantities of vanilla icing and nuts and hardened marsh-mallow globs and they’d bring it in barrels and dump it back there and it would shine. It would shine like a pure white mountain. Over at the school, somebody would see it and yell, ‘White Dump!’ and after school we’d all climb over the fence or run around it. We’d all be over there, scrabbling away at that enormous pile of white candy.”

“Did they sweep it off the floor?” said Peter. He sounded rather exhilarated by the idea. “Did you eat it?”

“Of course they did,” said Denise. “That was all they had. They were poor children.”

“No, no, no,” said Isabel. “We were poor but we certainly had candy. We got a nickel now and then to go to the store. It wasn’t that. It was something about the White Dump—that there was so much and it was so white and shiny. It was like a kid’s dream—the most wonderful promising thing you could ever see.”

“Mother and the Socialists would take it all away in the dead of night,” said Laurence, “and give you oranges instead.”

“If I picture marzipan, I can understand,” said Sophie. “Though you’ll have to admit it doesn’t seem very healthy.”

“It must have been terrible,” said Isabel. “For our teeth, and everything. But we didn’t really get enough to be sick, because there were so many of us and we had to scrabble so hard. It just seemed like the most wonderful thing.”

“White Dump!” said Laurence—who, at another time, to such a story might have said something like “Simple pleasures of the poor!” “White Dump,” he said, with a mixture of pleasure and irony, a natural appreciation that seemed to be exactly what Isabel wanted.

She shouldn’t have been surprised. She knew about Laurence’s
delicacy and kindness, as well as she knew his bullying and bluffing. She knew the turns of his mind, his changes of heart, the little shifts and noises of his body. They were intimate. They had found out so much about each other that everything had got cancelled out by something else. That was why the sex between them could seem so shamefaced, merely and drearily lustful, like sex between siblings. Love could survive that—had survived it. Look how she loved him at this moment. Isabel felt herself newly, and boundlessly, resourceful.

I
F HIS PARTNER
was there, if he and his partner were there together, she could say, “I think we left something yesterday. My mother-in-law thinks she dropped her glasses case. Not her glasses. Just the case. It doesn’t matter. I thought I’d check.”

If he was there alone but came toward her with a blank, pleasant look, inquiring, she might need to have a less trivial reason.

“I just wanted to find out about flying lessons. My husband asked me to find out.”

If he was there alone but his look was not so blank—yet it was still necessary that something should be said—she could say, “It was so kind of you to take everybody up yesterday and they did enjoy it. I just dropped by to thank you.”

She couldn’t believe this; she couldn’t believe it would happen. In spite of her reading, her fantasies, the confidences of certain friends, she couldn’t believe that people sent and got such messages every day, and acted on them, making their perilous plans, moving into illicit territory (which would turn out to be shockingly like, and unlike, home).

In the years ahead, she would learn to read the signs, both at the beginning and at the end of a love affair. She wouldn’t be so astonished at the way the skin of the moment can break open. But astonished enough that she would say one day to her grown-up daughter Denise, when they were drinking wine and talking about these things, “I think the best part is always right at the beginning. At the beginning. That’s the only pure part.” “Perhaps even before the beginning,” she said. “Perhaps just when it flashes on you what’s possible. That may be the best.”

“And the first love affair? I mean the first extra love affair?” (Denise suppressing all censure.) “Is that the best too?”

“With me, the most passionate. Also the most sordid.”

(Referring to the fact that the business was failing, that the pilot asked for, and received, some money from her; also to the grievous scenes of revelation that put an end to the affair and to her marriage, though not to his. Referring, as well, to scenes of such fusing, sundering pleasure that they left both parties flattened, and in a few cases, shedding tears. And to the very first scene, which she could replay in her mind at any time, recalling surprisingly mixed feelings of alarm and tranquillity.

The airport at about nine o’clock in the morning, the silence, sunlight, the dusty distant trees. The small white house that had obviously been hauled here from somewhere else to be the office. No curtains or blinds on its windows. But a piece of picket fence, of all things, a gate. He came out and held the gate open for her. He wore the same clothes that he had worn yesterday, the same light-colored work pants and work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She wore the same clothes that she had worn. Neither heard what the other said, or could answer in a way that made sense.

Too much ease on his part, or any sign of calculation—worse still, of triumph—would have sent her away. But he didn’t make that kind of mistake, probably wasn’t tempted to. Men who are successful with women—and he had been successful; she was to find out that he had been successful some times before, in very similar circumstances—men who are gifted in that way are not so light-minded about it as they are thought to be, and not unkind. He was resolute but seemed thoughtful, or even regretful, when he first touched her. A calming, appreciative touch, a slowly increasing declaration, over her bare neck and shoulders, bare arms and back, lightly covered breasts and hips. He spoke to her—some intimate, serious nonsense—while she swayed back and forth in a response that this touch made just bearable.

She felt rescued, lifted, beheld, and safe.)

A
FTER DINNER
, they played charades. Peter was Orion. He did the second syllable by drinking from an imaginary glass, then staggering
around and falling down. He was not disqualified, though it was agreed that Orion was a proper name.

“Space is Peter’s world, after all,” said Denise. Laurence and Isabel laughed. This remark was one that would be quoted from time to time in the household.

S
OPHIE
, who never understood the rules of charades—or, at least, could never keep to them—soon gave up the game, and began to read. Her book was
The Poetic Edda
, which she read every summer, but had been neglecting because of the demands of television. When she went to bed, she left it on the arm of her chair.

Isabel, picking it up before she turned out the light, read this verse:

(It is too late to talk of this now: it has been decided.)

T
HE TWO PEOPLE
who died were in their early sixties. They were both tall and well built, and carried a few pounds of extra weight. He was gray-haired, with a square, rather flat face. A broad nose kept him from looking perfectly dignified and handsome. Her hair was blond, a silvery blond that does not strike you as artificial anymore—though you know it is not natural—because so many women of that age have acquired it. On Boxing Day, when they dropped over to have a drink with Peg and Robert, she wore a pale-gray dress with a fine, shiny stripe in it, gray stockings, and gray shoes. She drank gin-and-tonic. He wore brown slacks and a cream-colored sweater, and drank rye-and-water. They had recently come back from a trip to Mexico. He had tried parachute-riding. She hadn’t wanted to. They had gone to see a place in Yucatán—it looked like a well—where virgins were supposed to have been flung down, in the hope of good harvests.

“Actually, though, that’s just a nineteenth-century notion,” she said. “That’s just the nineteenth-century notion of being so preoccupied with virginity. The truth probably is that they threw people down sort of indiscriminately. Girls or men or old people or whoever they could get their hands on. So not being a virgin would be no guarantee of safety!”