Some Came Running (156 page)

He knew, too, dimly, that in some strange way it was his way of getting even with Agnes. And for that matter, with all women. For the fact that they would never allow themselves to be possessed. This way he could possess them anyway, and they couldn’t do anything about it because they didn’t even know about it. Because never again would he make a mistake like knocking his knee against the wall. And, in fact, as time went on, he became very accomplished in his new art. Because it was an art, just like business or anything else.

He learned something else about this new art, too: Every night he went out was not going to be a spectacular, or even successful, evening. In fact, if he was any judge as he grew more practiced, it would only average out about one in ten nights that he would have any luck at all; even see anything. Long odds, for the risk involved, but he was willing to accept them. Because every night might be
the
one. But as far as that went, there wasn’t really much risk involved. Nobody ever saw him. Unless they happened to see him sauntering along the sidewalks taking a respectable evening “constitutional.” There was really very little risk. And always, tantalizingly, before his mind’s eye, was that one night at Edith’s.

On the three nights he did go out “walking” before Agnes returned, one time he walked down past Edith’s again; that was the first time. But the lights were already out, when he got there. Either she wasn’t home, or else had gone to bed. Damn! if he just hadn’t knocked his knee against the wall that first time.

And then, on that same evening, with a sudden inspiration, he walked over east past Al and Geneve Lowe’s house. He knew that house like the back of his hand, too. And this time he had luck. As he stood screened by some bushes, peering into the side window of the long living room, where he could see Al sitting reading, Geneve came out of the hallway at the far end. And Geneve was stark, mother naked. Lithely, she walked down the length of the long room to where Al sat about a quarter of the way up; looking just exactly as she had when he had seen her so many other times. As he watched breathlessly, Geneve sat down on the arm of her husband’s chair and kissed him. It didn’t take her long. In a moment, she was up and going back toward the hall, and Al was following her, his book lying forgotten on the floor. Cautiously, Frank slipped around to the back to where the bedroom window was, but it was dark. They had turned the lights off. Unhappily, Frank stood for quite a while and looked at it. Then he went home, to his own empty house and bed, and self. Even so, though, he had had plenty of time to drink her all in as she walked down the long room. That made two women now that he had completely possessed. He ought to start himself a score sheet. Someday, after they got home, he was going to spy on Agnes herself, by God!

But after that one, he didn’t have much more luck. It was—as he progressed in his new hobby—becoming increasingly apparent that it was going to take a lot of nights of “walking” to get one even halfway decent result. But he was willing to accept the odds. Besides, his evening constitutionals were good exercise. He felt better than he had in years, in spite of the drinking. But then, of course, he had been playing golf all summer at the Country Club, too.

But if the results of “walking” were so few, he was quite willing to accept that. Every time he did get to see one, fully see one, it would be another woman he had possessed. And that was what he had always wanted: to possess women. Who would never allow themselves to be possessed. God, how he hated women sometimes! He had never realized how much he really did hate them. All except his mother, of course. He didn’t hate her. And, in fact, he had been visiting her a lot more often, since the Old Man died in July. In spite of his heavy work schedule, he was visiting with her twice a week now, instead of just once. Which, of course, naturally pleased her.

But as for the rest of them: to hell with them. It was strange—anymore he saw almost every woman as a kind of double person—as mother, and as woman. When he saw them as mothers, he admired and respected them. And would do almost anything for them. But then his mind would sort of shift gears—unless the woman in question was too old to see that way—and he would see them as women, instead of mothers, and he would hate their guts. And if they were someone he knew, he would secretly place them on his growing list for future possession.

But when Agnes and Walter finally came home, and he had them around the house there once again, he found it eased him. It changed things, and the absolutely uncontrollable urge to go out “walking” reached its peak less frequently—though still just as irrepressibly, when it did come. And he was glad, too; because he didn’t want to get himself to going out too often. That might increase his chances of getting caught. And as long as he stayed at home, he was safe.

It wasn’t much of a home anymore, he had to admit—except for little Walter—but at least it was better than it had been living there wholly alone. One thing Agnes made plain as soon as she got home, and that was that she had no intention of taking up “relations” with him again. She had told him over the phone from Kansas City that it was to be “strictly a business arrangement”—for the good of little Walter—and he had said yes, yes, anything, without even thinking about it one way or the other; but when she got home, it became plain that she had meant it. As soon as she got home, the very first thing she did was to move herself out of their joint bedroom. Immediately upon arrival—with little Walter helping her—she moved all her clothes out of the closet and took all her things from the dresser, and moved them all upstairs to Dawnie’s old room. And immediately she had done so, she went to bed sick. It was her gall bladder. She had a constant nagging driving pain in her right side from it; and had had, she said, for some time before she went on that exhausting trip to Kansas City. It was a miracle that she had even been able to make the drive both ways. There was a hint, unspoken, of a deep accusation of Frank for having forced her to do so when she was ill. She had, she said, gone to a specialist in Kansas City who told her she ought to have her gall bladder out. She had not done so, because it was more than just a minor operation, but she might have to do so yet.

Frank noted, rather sarcastically to himself, that her illness had not made her lose any weight; if anything, she had gained a little. Nevertheless, she remained in bed and in constant pain; and little Walter waited upon her like some miniature slave. Even Frank himself was forced to wait on her quite a bit himself, which he did ungrudgingly, because he was not even at all sure himself that she wasn’t sick. She had Doc Cost out to examine her once she was home and firmly ensconced upstairs—explaining to Doc that she had moved herself up there because of her illness with which she did not want to disturb Frank—and Doc’s diagnosis confirmed that she might very easily have something wrong with her gall bladder. But he advised against taking it out unless absolutely necessary because it would make her a semi-invalid the rest of her life. Instead, he advised her to diet.

This was all right with Frank, because Frank didn’t want anything to happen to her. But even so, he could not quite overcome a suspicion that a lot of it was more put-on than real. And yet, on two different occasions the first month she was home, she had acute attacks in the night, after dinner parties; and it looked to be damned real. Just the same, he noted that it never bothered her from getting out of bed to cook, or to go to some club meeting somewhere; and it did not prevent her from accepting all the flocks of high-toned dinner invitations they were still getting. And it did not prevent her from entertaining in return. But if that was what she wanted to do, it was all right with him. As for the diet, there began to appear a lot more stewed vegetables and stewed fruit, a lot more “New England boiled dinners,” amongst her cooking, and a lot less meat and potatoes; and Frank did not like that. But he did not say anything. He was willing to put up even with that, to have her home here with him and to look after him and Walter, damn her.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Perhaps she wanted him to come sit by her and hold her hand and wait on her, and gradually talk her back into being in love with him again and—after she finally got over her pique—get her to start sleeping with him again. Perhaps that was what she wanted: for him to talk her into it over her own protests. But if that was what she wanted, he was damned if he would. There was a limit to what even a loving husband could take. Damn her. She had ruined everything else; he was damned if he would go and beg her for her damned affections. Let her be a damned invalid. And he would be a damned peeping tom. Oh, God! he thought terrifiedly; and yet there was still a high excitement in the thought, too. Let her stay upstairs. If she thought that hurt him—her moving up there, she couldn’t have been more wrong. He was glad to have the downstairs bedroom to himself. It gave him more freedom than he had had in years, really; he could go out at night anytime he wanted; and at the same time having her back home kept him from getting that curious panic.

God! Where had it gone, that year of happiness they had had? What had happened? Why couldn’t they get it back? He had never loved anyone or anything as much as he had loved her during that year. And now, it was gone. She had forced him to give up his mistress—the having of which wasn’t hurting her any; not a damned bit—and then she had agreed to come home, and had entrenched herself upstairs, giving nothing, and he had entrenched himself downstairs, and the house in effect had become an armed camp—with little Walter the UN go-between. Except, of course, when there was company there; or they were out somewhere. Why did it have to be like that? If she was going to do that, she could at least have let him keep his mistress!

And an almost uncontainable outrage and humiliation and sort of a vague self-destructiveness would sweep over him. And the only way he could get rid of it was to put on dark clothes and go out “walking” and come home half drunk, viciously pleased at what he was taking away from her, goddam her. Edith, of course, was already gone by this time. There would be no more chances at her again, ever. And the thought of that—and the memory of that one perfect night—would make him catch his breath, and hurt him with hunger that was almost unbearable. But she was gone. She had finished up her two weeks of training the new little girl and then, three days before Agnes and Walter returned, she had gone. On her last day, she had come around to him where he was standing with Al Lowe discussing the new store, and had made her farewells to both of them. She shook hands with them, smiling, and once more—for the last time—she called him “Boss.” There was nothing whatever about her to indicate that she felt the least bit bad about leaving him, or felt the least bit more affection for him, than she felt for Al. True to the last, Frank thought. True to the act that they had chosen to play. And he could not dampen a strong sense of admiration for her that made her leaving just that much more painful. What was she thinking, he wondered? What was she feeling? She certainly didn’t show she was feeling
any
thing. That was the last time he had seen her.

And three days later, Agnes and little Walter arrived home.

Frank was downtown at his new offices working, when they got in that afternoon, and Agnes called him there from the house. Half deliberately, he told her that he could not get away just now, that he was in an important conference about the shopping center. He was, in fact, in an important conference on the shopping center; but it was not any conference that he couldn’t have got away from, if he had really wanted to. It gave him considerable pleasure to tell her what he did. Damn her.

Later on, when he did wind everything up, and did get home, it was nearly evening and Agnes and little Walter were just finishing moving all of Agnes’s things upstairs. Frank mixed himself a good, stiff drink and came to the foot of the stairs in the hall which they were going up and down with the things. He had not known what he was going to say when he went in there, and neither did they apparently. He and Agnes were both constrained. Even little Walter was constrained. They all three stood in the hall looking at each other, Walter eyeing both of them out of a solemnly expressionless face. It seemed silly to merely say only the single word
hello
to each other; but that was what they all said.

“Movin upstairs?” Frank said finally.

“Yes,” Agnes said crisply, with an added overtone of wailfulness in her voice. “I’m not at all well.” You wouldn’t think anybody could speak crisply, and at the same time still sound wailful; but Agnes could.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Frank said. Then he looked down at little Walter and emotion welled up in him, and he set his drink down and squatted down and put out his arms. “Well, hello there, buddy-boy,” he grinned. “How’s it feel to be back home?”

Walter cast his mother one swift glance, as if checking to make sure she would not be offended, and then came into his arms and put his own arms around Frank.

“Fine, Dad,” he said in his solemn way. “I’m glad to be back. We’re both of us glad to be home,” he said.

“I’m sure you are,” Frank said, patting him on the back. “And I’m just as glad to have you both home.” He looked up at Agnes and smiled, and she smiled, too. Both were constrained.

“Did you get to see any ball games while you were out there?” Frank said, patting the small back.

“We saw one game,” Walter said. “But it wasn’t big league. Me and Aunt Mary Ellen’s boys went, by ourselves.”

“Well, that’s good,” Frank said. Reluctantly, he released the little boy.

“Walter,” Agnes said, “why don’t you go out and play with your road equipment for a while? We’ll finish all this later.”

“Yes, Mother,” Walter said, and with another covert careful glance at both of them, he went out through the living room.

“I put all your road equipment in the garage,” Frank called after him, “to keep it out of the weather.”

“Yes, sir,” Walter said. “Thank you.”

“Well, let’s get it over with,” Frank said thinly, after he was gone. He picked up his drink again.