Tales for a Stormy Night (3 page)

“Then you’re carrying it in your stomach. I noticed you’ve cut the elastic out of your shorts.”

“These new fabrics,” he said testily.

“They’re preshrunken,” she said. “It’s your stomach. And haven’t you noticed how you pull at your collar all the time?”

“I meant to mention that, Sarah. You put too much starch in them.”

“I ran out of starch last week and forgot to order it. You can take a size fifteen-and-a-half now.”

“Good Lord, Sarah, you’re going to tell me next I should wear a horse collar.” He let the book slide closed between his thighs. “I get home only three or four nights a week. I’m tired. I wish you wouldn’t aggravate me, dear.”

She went to his chair and sat on the arm of it. “Did you know that I was beginning to wonder if you’d respond to the poke of a hat-pin?”

He looked directly up at her for the first time in what had seemed like years. His eyes fell away. “I’ve been working very hard, dear.”

“I don’t care what you’ve been doing, Gerald. I’m just glad to find out that you’re still human.”

He slid his arm around her and tightened it.

“Aren’t spring flowers lovely?” she said.

“Yes,” he said, “and so is spring.”

She leaned across him and took a flower from the vase. She lingered there a moment. He touched his hand to her. “And you’re lovely, too.”

This is simple, she thought, getting upright again. If the rabbit had sat on a thistle he’d have won the race.

“The three most beautiful things in the world,” Gerald said thoughtfully, “a white bird flying, a field of wheat, and a woman’s body.”

“Is that your own, Gerald?”

“I don’t know. I think it is.”

“It’s been a long time since you wrote any poetry. You did nice things once.”

“That’s how I got you,” he said quietly.

“And I got you with an old house. I remember the day my mother’s will was probated. The truth, Gerald—wasn’t it then you made up your mind?”

He didn’t speak for a moment, and then it was a continuance of some thought of his own, a subtle twist of association. “Do you remember the piece I wrote on the house?”

“I read it the other day. I often read them again.”

“Do you, Sarah? And never a mention of it.”

It was almost all the reading she did these days. His devotion to books had turned her from them. “Remember how you used to let me read them to you. Gerald? You thought that I was the only one besides yourself who could do them justice.”

“I remember.”

“Or was that flattery?”

He smiled. “It was courtship, I’m afraid. No one ever thinks anybody else can do his poetry justice. But Sarah, do you know—I’d listen tonight if you’d read some of them. Just for old time’s sake.”

For old time’s sake, she thought, getting the folder from the cabinet and settling opposite him. He was slouched in his chair, pulling at his pipe, his eyes half-closed. Long ago this same contemplativeness in him had softened the first shock of the difference in their ages.

“I’ve always liked this one best—
The Morning of My Days
.”

“Well you might,” he murmured. “It was written for you.”

She read one piece after another, wondering now and then what pictures he was conjuring up of the moment he had written them. He would suck on his pipe at times. The sound was like a baby pulling at an empty bottle. She was reading them well, she thought, giving them a mellow vibrancy, an old love’s tenderness. Surely there was a moment coming when he would rise from the chair and come to her. Still he sat, his eyes almost closed, the pipe now in hand on the chair’s arm. A huskiness crept into her voice, so rarely used to this length any more, and she thought of the nightingale’s singing, the thorn against its breast. A slit of pain in her own throat pressed her to greater effort, for the poems were almost done.

She stopped abruptly, a phrase unfinished, at a noise in the room. The pipe had clattered to the floor, Gerald’s hand still cupped its shape, but his chin was now on his breast. Laying the folder aside, she went over and picked up the pipe with a rather empty regret, as she would pick up a bird that had fallen dead at her feet.

Gerald’s departure in the morning was in the tradition of all their days, even to the kiss upon her cheek and the words, “Till tomorrow evening, dear, take care.”

Take care, she thought, going indoors. Take care of what? For what? Heat a boiler of water to cook an egg? She hurried her chores and dressed. When she saw Mr. Joyce hitch the wagon of flowers, she locked the door and waited boldly at the road for him.

“May I have a lift to the highway?” she called out, as he reined up beside her.

“You may have a lift to the world’s end, Mrs. Shepherd. Give me your hand.” He gave the horse its rein when she was beside him. “I see your old fella’s taken off again. I daresay it gave him a laugh, our ride in the moonlight.”

“It was giddy business,” she said.

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

“I did. But I paid for it afterwards.” Her hand went to her back.

“I let out a squeal now and then bending over, myself. But I counted it cheap for the pleasure we had. I’ll take you into the village. I’ve to buy a length of hose anyway. Or do you think you’ll be taken for a fool riding in on a wagon?”

“It won’t be the first time,” she said. “My life is full of foolishness.”

“It’s a wise fool who laughs at his own folly. We’ve that in common, you and me. Where’ll we take our supper tonight?”

He was sharp as mustard.

“You’re welcome to come over,” she said.

He nodded. “I’ll fetch us a steak, and we’ll give Micky his heels again after.”

Sarah got off at the post office and stayed in the building until Joyce was out of sight—Joyce and the gapers who had stopped to see her get out of the wagon. Getting in was one thing, getting out another. A bumblebee after a violet. It was time for this trip. She walked to the doctor’s office and waited her turn among the villagers.

“I thought I’d come in for a check-up, Dr. Philips,” she said at his desk. “And maybe you’d give me a diet?”

“A diet?” He took off his glasses and measured her with the naked eye.

“I’m getting a little fat,” she said. “They say it’s a strain on the heart at my age.”

“Your heart could do for a woman of twenty,” he said, “but we’ll have a listen.”

“I’m not worried about my heart, Doctor, you understand. I just feel that I’d like to lose a few pounds.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Open your dress.” He got his stethoscope.

Diet, apparently, was the rarest of his prescriptions. Given as a last resort. She should have gone into town for this, not to a country physician who measured a woman by the children she bore. “The woman next door to us died of a heart condition,” she said, as though that should explain her visit.

“Who’s that?” he asked, putting away the instrument.

“Mrs. Joyce. Some years ago.”

“She had a heart to worry about. Living for years on stimulants. Yours is as sound as a bullet. Let’s have your arm.”

She pushed up her sleeve as he prepared the apparatus for measuring her blood pressure. That, she felt, was rising out of all proportion. She was ashamed of herself before this man, and angry at herself for it, and at him for no reason more than that he was being patient with her. “We’re planning insurance,” she lied. “I wanted our own doctor’s opinion first.”

“You’ll have no trouble getting it, Mrs. Shepherd. And no need of a diet.” He grinned and removed the apparatus. “Go easy on potatoes and bread, and on the sweets. You’ll outlive your husband by twenty years. How is he, by the way?”

“Fine. Just fine, Doctor, thank you.”

What a nice show you’re making of yourself these days, Sarah, she thought, outdoors again. Well, come in or go out, old girl, and slam the door behind you…

Micky took to his heels that night. He had had a day of ease, and new shoes were stinging his hooves by nightfall. The skipping of Joyce with each snap of the harness teased him, the giggling from the rig adding a prickle. After the wagon, the rig was no more than a fly on his tail. He took the full reins when they slapped on his flanks and charged out from the laughter behind him. It rose to a shriek the faster he galloped and tickled his ears like something alive that slithered from them down his neck and his belly and into his loins. Faster and faster he plunged, the sparks from his shoes like ocean spray. He fought a jerk of the reins, the saw of the bit in his mouth a fierce pleasure. He took turns at his own fancy and only in sight of his own yard again did he yield in the fight, choking on the spume that lathered his tongue.

“By the holy, the night a horse beats me, I’ll lie down in my grave,” Joyce cried. “Get up now, you buzzard. You’re not turning in till you go to the highway and back. Are you all right, Sarah?”

Am I all right, she thought. When in years had she known a wild ecstasy like this? From the first leap of the horse she had burst the girdle of fear and shame. If the wheels had spun out from beneath them, she would have rolled into the ditch contented.

“I’ve never been better,” she said.

He leaned close to her to see her, for the moon had just risen. The wind had stung the tears to her eyes, but they were laughing. “By the Horn Spoon,” he said, “you liked it!” He let the horse have his own way into the drive after all. He jumped down from the rig and held his hand up to her. “What a beautiful thing to be hanging in the back of the closet all these years.”

“If that’s a compliment,” she said, “it’s got a nasty bite.”

“Aye. But it’s my way of saying you’re a beautiful woman.”

“Will you come over for a cup of coffee?”

“I will. I’ll put up the horse and be over.”

The kettle had just come to the boil when he arrived.

“Maybe you’d rather have tea, Mr. Joyce?”

“Coffee or tea, so long as it’s not water. And I’d like you to call me Frank. They christened me Francis but I got free of it early.”

“And you know mine, I noticed,” she said.

“It slipped out in the excitement. There isn’t a woman I know who wouldn’t of collapsed in a ride like that.”

“It was wonderful.” She poured the water into the coffee pot.

“There’s nothing like getting behind a horse,” he said, “unless it’s getting astride him. I wouldn’t trade Micky for a Mack truck.”

“I used to ride when I was younger,” she said.

“How did you pick up the man you got, if you don’t mind my asking?”

And you the old woman, she thought; where did you get her? “I worked for a publishing house and he brought in some poetry.”

“Ah, that’s it.” He nodded. “And he thought with a place like this he could pour it out like water from a spout.”

“Gerald and I were in love,” she said, irked that he should define so bluntly her own thoughts on the matter.

“Don’t I remember it? In them days you didn’t pull the blinds. It used to put me in a fine state.”

“Do you take cream in your coffee? I’ve forgotten.”

“Aye, thank you, and plenty of sugar.”

“You haven’t missed much,” she said.

“There’s things you see through a window you’d miss sitting down in the living-room. I’ll wager you’ve wondered about the old lady and me?”

“A little. She wasn’t so old, was she, Mr. Joyce?” Frank, she thought. Too frank.

“That one was old in her crib. But she came with a greenhouse. I worked for her father.”

Sarah poured the coffee. “You’re a cold-blooded old rogue,” she said.

He grinned. “No. Cool-headed I am, and warm-blooded. When I was young, I made out it was the likes of poetry. She sang like a bird on a convent wall. But when I caged her she turned into an old crow.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say, Mr. Joyce.”

The humor left his face for an instant. “It’s a terrible thing to live with. It’d put a man off his nut. You don’t have a bit of cake in the house, Sarah, to go with this?”

“How about muffins and jam?”

“That’ll go fine.” He smiled again. “Where does your old fella spend the night in his travels?”

“In the hotel in whatever town he happens to be in.”

“That’s a lonesome sort of life for a married man,” he said.

She pulled a chair to the cupboard and climbed up to get ajar of preserves. He made no move to help her although she still could not reach the jar. She looked down at him. “You could give me a hand.”

“Try it again. You almost had it that time.” He grinned, almost gleeful at her discomfort.

She bounced down in one step. “Get it yourself if you want it. I’m satisfied with a cup of coffee.”

He pounded his fist on the table, getting up. “You’re right, Sarah. Never fetch a man anything he can fetch himself. Which bottle is it?”

“The strawberry.”

He hopped up and down, nimble as a goat. “But then maybe he doesn’t travel alone?”

“What?”

“I was suggesting your man might have an outside interest. Salesmen have the great temptation, you know.”

“That’s rather impertinent, Mr. Joyce.”

“You’re right, Sarah, it is. My tongue’s been home so long it doesn’t know how to behave in company. This is a fine cup of coffee.”

She sipped hers without speaking. It was time she faced that question, she thought. She had been hedging around it for a long time, and last night with Gerald should have forced it upon her. “And if he does have an outside interest,” she said, lifting her chin, “what, of it?”

“Ah, Sarah, you’re a wise woman, and worth waiting the acquaintance of. You like me a little now, don’t you?”

“A little.”

“Well,” he said, getting up, “I’ll take that to keep me warm for the night.”

And what have I got to keep me warm, she thought. “Thank you for the ride, Frank. It was thrilling.”

“Was it?” he said, coming near her. He lifted her chin with his forefinger. “We’ve many a night like this ahead, Sarah, if you say the word.” And then when she left her chin on his finger, he bent down and kissed her, taking himself to the door after it with a skip and a jump. He paused there and looked back at her. “Will I stay or go?”

“You’d better go,” she choked out, wanting to be angry but finding no anger in herself at all.

All the next day Sarah tried to anchor herself from her peculiar flights of fancy. She had no feeling for the man, she told herself. It was a fine state a woman reached when a kiss from a stranger could do that to her. It was the ride made you giddy, she said aloud. You were thinking of Gerald. You were thinking of…the Lord knows what. She worked upstairs until she heard the wagon go by. She would get some perspective when Gerald came home. It seemed as though he’d been gone a long time.