American Appetites (14 page)

“—and somehow I met up with her, with Sigrid, after that party here—when you introduced us—”

“
That's
important, isn't it—a bit of evidence for the record—that
I
introduced you?”

“—and I don't know how or why, for the life of me, Glynnis, I don't really remember the sequence, when she called me, or how it developed,” Ian said, stumbling over his words. “One day she telephoned me at the Institute and seemed to be—hinted that—wanted me to see her, to help her in some way. And I—I didn't think I could—I couldn't say
no
. She seemed so desperate and so—”

“Your lover. Sigrid
Hunt
.”

Glynnis spoke in a tone of supreme yet amused disgust. If she was drunk, as Ian guessed, quite seriously drunk, as he suspected, and as he himself, rather helplessly, was beginning to be, nonetheless she maintained a really quite extraordinary control: might almost have been giving—granting?—one of the frequent interviews she had begun to give, in recent years, since the unexpected development of her public “career.” And Ian too began to speak assertively, emphatically, as if for the record. “The woman is not my lover. Sigrid Hunt is not my lover. I do not have a lover, I have a wife. I scarcely know her—”

“Who is ‘her'? The lover, or the wife?”

“I said: I do not have a lover.”

“Why cannot you say her name? Sigrid
Hunt
.”

“I've told you, I scarcely know her.”

“Yet you love her. You fuck her.
You
—and
her
.”

Ian stared at her, shocked.

“Glynnis, that's absurd.”

“
You
—and
her
,” Glynnis said. “That diseased little
tramp
.”

She lit up another cigarette, and tossed down her matches, and exhaled smoke from both nostrils, and said, fixing him with a look of rather theatrical contempt, “Did you think there would be no consequences?
You
—and
her?
”

Ian laughed angrily. “You've been drinking and you're in no state to discuss this. I tell you there is nothing between Sigrid Hunt and me; there has been nothing; I scarcely know her—really. I think we'd better save this for another time.”

“But did you really think there would be no consequences?”

“There
are
no consequences.”

“Except that, by accident, though possibly it wasn't entirely an accident, I found the check,” Glynnis said. “One thousand dollars. Payable to Sigrid Hunt. Signed, Ian McCullough.” She too laughed, with a strange joyous violence. “
In Ian McCullough's inimitable hand
.”

“She was in desperate need, I told you, of—”

“What was the money for? An abortion?”

“—It was a loan, Glynnis, not a gift. I'll have Sigrid explain—”

“Was it for an abortion?”

Calmly he said, “You don't really believe I would be unfaithful to you, do you? When you know, you absolutely must know, that I love you. That I could not live without you.”

“
That
I believe,” Glynnis said, laughing. “But it doesn't follow from it that you love me. Still less, that you haven't been unfaithful to me.”

“Glynnis, this is all so absurd. In the morning—”

“That diseased little tramp. Sigrid
Hunt
.”

Ian winced. “Why do you say that? Why say such a thing? Diseased? Why? How?”

“Are you worried? You
do
look worried!”

“Sigrid was your friend, not—”

“As if I wouldn't know. Wouldn't guess.
Sense
.”

“She was your friend, not mine. She came into my life by way of—”

“And do you really fuck her?
You?
Ian McCullough so very suddenly the
lover?
”

“I've told you there is nothing between us. There was nothing. Damn you,” Ian whispered. “It isn't what you think—I swear.”

“How many times have you fucked her? Or
have
you—at all?”

“Glynnis, please stop. This is ugly, this is absurd, you are saying things you'll regret—”

“
I
am ugly,
I
am absurd, because
I
have ferreted out the truth, is that it?”

“I swear—”

“Swear on a stack of Bibles!”

Glynnis's face glowed in mockery. She was making an allusion—an unforgivable allusion, Ian thought it—to an incident of many years back: while at Harvard, the McCulloughs had befriended a young man in Ian's department, like Ian an assistant professor without tenure; and this young man, by the name of Scobie, “borrowed” heavily from an article of Ian's he had read in manuscript and hurriedly published his borrowings in the prestigious journal
World Politics
—with no reference to Ian McCullough, of course. He claimed that the ideas were his own, and not Ian's; they had come to him quite independently of Ian; who could prove they had not? Certain ideas circulated in the air, in the very atmosphere; who could prove they did not? “I would never steal from you or from anyone,” Scobie had said indignantly. “I swear on a stack of Bibles.” Though really quite angered by their friend's betrayal, and, at the time, deeply hurt, the McCulloughs had managed finally to laugh together over Scobie's rhetoric: for would not, as Glynnis pointed out, a single Bible have been enough for Scobie's purposes? Why a stack?

“You're drunk,” Ian said.

“
You're
a liar,” Glynnis said.

“We'll talk about it in the morning,” Ian said. “Morning is soon enough.”

“Where are you going tonight?”

“Going—?”

I want you out of here. Tonight.”

“Glynnis, for christ's sake—”

Go to
her
, go quickly to telephone
her
. Why sit here with
me
?”

“Glynnis, please. You must know—”

I know too much.”

You are exaggerating this. There was absolutely nothing—”

“Swear on a stack of Bibles!”

“Goddamn you, that isn't funny. In the morning—”

“There isn't going to be any morning.”

“I am not leaving this house. This is my house, and I am not leaving it.”

“Ah, but did you,
do
you, really fuck her?
You
—and
her
?”

“Shut up!”

“I find that a novel idea, really. I find that—
novel
.”

“Why are you doing this? Making it so vulgar and—”

“You of all people: Ian McCullough the
lover
,” Glynnis said, laughing. “I find that
novel
.”

“—so vulgar and degrading—”

“And not ro
man
tic? I'm so sorry.”

“It isn't like you. In the morning—”

“And it isn't like
you?
Lying to me, and deceiving me, and making a fool of me, and—”

“
There was nothing between Sigrid Hunt and me
. I've said—”

“Don't shout at me, goddamn you. Who do you think you are, goddamn you? I found the check, and you weren't going to tell me about it, were you, ever: you and
her
, imagine you fucking her, Sigrid
Hunt, you
, Ian McCullough, impotent half the time, three quarters of the time, goddamn you don't you look at me like that, I won't tolerate that, you pack your goddamn things and get out of the house tonight, I don't have to tolerate you, or her, bringing that woman into our lives, that bitch, that cunt, into our bed, how many ‘sexual partners' do you think a woman like that has had in her lifetime, and how many have each of those ‘sexual partners' had, goddamn you, I'm talking to
you
, bringing disease into our lives, bringing death, for all I know bringing
death
—”

Glynnis's voice rose precipitously. Her eyes were wild, now, and bright with tears. Ian tried to take her hand, to calm her, but she drew away; he said, “But Glynnis, you haven't listened. I am not Sigrid Hunt's lover—as I've tried to tell you. All that might be said of me, or of our relations, is that we are friends of a kind. Vague, undefined—”

“Ah, yes, ‘vague'! ‘Undefined'!”

“But I am not her lover: I have not ever made love to her. You might speak with her, if—”

Glynnis gave a little scream and brought her fists down hard on the table. “Speak to her yourself—go and sneak away and telephone her yourself. That little conniving
bitch
.”

Ian's temples throbbed, his gut was awash with nausea. He could not bear this terrible scene, yet he knew he must; he must think of it as a game, a codified game, not unlike similar games Glynnis had forced him to play in the past: his humiliation, her self-righteous triumph. For he was to be humbled and surely deserved to be humbled; she had right on her side, was therefore righteous: deserved, however rough the passage, triumph. He could not bear it, yet he must. He said, “But I love
you
, Glynnis—you must know that.”

Glynnis said angrily, “I don't know the first thing about you.”

At this point Ian rose to embrace her, meaning to comfort her; but, as if perversely, Glynnis misunderstood the gesture, gave a little scream and shrank back, and the table shook, and one of the candles toppled from its holder. Before Ian could pinch out the flame with his fingers the tablecloth was scorched. Ian thought, Something terrible is going to happen.

Yet he did not walk away, did not, as instinct urged, flee the house and Glynnis. He sat down again at his place, heavily, as if fated: staring at this woman with the wild hurt eyes and disheveled hair with a new fascination, as if he had never really seen her before, had not, before tonight, really known her. And Glynnis in her turn stared at him. “Just don't you
touch
me,” she whispered.

IAN WOULD RECALL
afterward, to the degree to which he recalled the next hour and a half at all, that much of the time he and Glynnis had not seemed to be quarreling; were merely talking, talking earnestly, if heatedly, their voices slightly raised and slightly careening as if from side to side, like roller-coaster cars. Again and again, with numbing persistence, Glynnis returned to the matter of the check, to Ian's deception, as she saw it; and Ian defended himself, telling her—or trying, through her interruptions, to tell her—what had happened between him and Sigrid Hunt, what had not happened between him and Sigrid Hunt. If Glynnis listened she did not hear, seemed incapable of hearing. It is her self-hatred with which I am contending, Ian thought, and the thought astonished him. He had not known, had not guessed.

There was the matter of Sigrid Hunt, but there was also the matter, as it developed, of Bianca: Bianca's love, the loss of which Glynnis blamed on Ian, with a cold, reasoned passion that quite astonished him. And there was the matter, yet again, yet now more embittered, of Ian's “chronic impotence”—his withdrawal, as Glynnis saw it, from her and from their marriage.

And there was the matter, revealed with unnerving candor, of the affairs Glynnis herself claimed to have had: intermittently, as she said, throughout their marriage.

Affairs? Glynnis? Throughout their marriage?

Seeing Ian's look of utter disbelief Glynnis said, “Of course,
you
would never have guessed.” She smiled at him, angrily. “
You
—wrapped in your own little world—would never have guessed.”

Ian thought, I must get out of here; I can't breathe.

Glynnis said, “Wouldn't you even like to know who they were? The men? Aren't you at least curious?”

Ian shook his head mutely. He really could not believe what he'd heard; stared at Glynnis, as if in appeal.

“one of them I really did love—I love him, as a matter of fact, even now,” Glynnis said, her voice breaking. “Gave him up for
you
, hurt his feelings, hurt myself—for
you
.”

“Glynnis, you are saying things you—”

“And all for what? For
you
.”

“For God's sake—”

“For
you
, for
you
. And now you're too cowardly even to ask his name.”

Again Ian shook his head. His heart was knocking against his ribs.

He said, “Who was it?”

“
Is
it.”

“Who is it?”

Now that she had roused him to anger, Glynnis smiled at him bitterly and shrugged. “What difference does it make? It's over now.”

“Who is it? Someone I know?”

“Too late! All over! Because of you!”

“Someone in Hazelton?”

“Yes, it's someone in Hazelton,” Glynnis said indifferently, pouring herself another glass of wine. Her hands were very unsteady now. “A prominent man, a much talked-of man, in Hazelton. A friend of yours, in fact. And I gave him up, and that was a mistake; Christ, was that ever a mistake,
wasn't
it. And now you,
you
, lying to me about
her
, you hypocrite, you bastard—thinking you could deceive
me
—”

“Glynnis, you must listen to me—”

“As if I can believe anything you say!”

Then, with no warning, Glynnis was on her feet, sobbing uncontrollably, screaming at Ian to get out of the house. Ian leapt up and tried to restrain her, for she'd become, in that instant, hysterical; and she shoved him away, screaming, as if fearful he meant to hurt her. Though he had not seen her snatch it up, she was holding the steak knife in her right hand; brandishing it, in fact, in an extravagant gesture, that at another time would have reduced them both to tears of laughter. Ian reached blindly for the knife, closing his fingers around the blade, and Glynnis, screaming, struck him on the head and on the nose, bloodying his nose; and in their desperate struggle the table was overturned, and everything went flying and crashed to the floor—china, food, candles, bottles. Ian had no awareness of his fingers bleeding but he knew his nose was bleeding and still Glynnis continued in her fury, striking wild blows against his head, his chest, taunting him with that terrible word
you, you, you
as if it were the foulest of obscenities. He seized her shoulders and began to shake her, pleading with her to stop, to stop this madness, damn you oh goddamn you,
stop;
and still she struggled, demonically strong, and would not stop screaming, her eyes wild and her forehead gleaming with sweat and her hair charged as if with static electricity. Ian thought of Medusa: that monstrous being at whom the hero Perseus could not look directly, out of terror of being turned to stone. Ian thought, She wants my heart; nothing less will appease her.