Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence (16 page)

Unbelievable, she thought. Also despicable. She shut the book, despising Henry again. She shouted into the dark, empty house, “It's a little late, isn't it, Henry?” After getting up, she walked slowly toward the kitchen to drop the book in the trash—she wanted it gone, out of the house. She carried a candle in one hand, the book in the other. She was almost in the kitchen, when the candle sputtered and went out, but not before she saw Henry seated at the kitchen table. Startled, she dropped the candle and the book just as lightning flashed across his rough cheeks and glinted off his glasses. A cigarette hung in his lips.

“Yes, you're right,” he said, dropping the cigarette. “A little late for anyone, really.” He leaned over and lifted the book from the floor, then stood and went to the back door. After opening the door, he threw the book out into the rainy darkness. “The irrelevance. The . . .” He didn't go on.

He's drunk, Catherine thought, wondering why he had come, what he was doing in her kitchen. He wobbled and stuffed a hand deep into his pocket. She noticed, in the intermittent flashes of lightning, that he wasn't wearing any shoes. From his pocket, Henry produced the lease, which he set on the table, and a check, which he held out to her. “Take it,” he said, and thrust it at her. “You deserve it, Cathy.” The abbreviated version of her name, which she hadn't heard in years, sounded more like a taunt than an endearment.

“I don't want it.”

“You might not want it,” he said, “but it belongs to you. So take it.”

Glancing down at the check, which he'd placed on the table, she saw the zeroes—were there three of them?—and the lease beside it, signed at last.

“I've really taken to the place. I'm getting some work done,” he said. “Besides, I have nowhere else to go.”

“Henry,” she said, “this was only meant to be temporary,” and she shuddered, remembering what Jane had said, that temporary had a way of becoming forever. “Antonia has many rooms. You should have gone there to begin with. I never understood—”

“You aren't supposed to understand,” he said, as lightning flashed again, lighting his face. It was no longer the face that love had preserved, the face she'd suspended in memory, but the face of a fifty-nine-year-old man falling into old age. There was little left of Henry Swallow in this face; the varnish of the critic and scholar had been wiped away. “I can't do it anymore, Catherine. I can't believe . . . I can't see her again. I'm done with her,” he said, his face sagging. He repeated what he said, as if she hadn't heard him. She had heard him, though, and the shock of this news left her distressed. She knew about the failure of love. Her own marriage had been dying for years before Wyatt died, but in an odd way his death had undone the damage.

Then suddenly, Henry was crying hysterically. He dropped his arms and head onto the table and he sobbed, letting out extraordinary animal cries, his body wracked with the effort. Even though she found him pathetic, the sight of him still managed to arouse a swelling of feelings in Catherine. She'd been looking forward to this moment, she realized, this moment when Henry sat across from her and wept. Yet she'd always imagined it differently, for other reasons—his sincerest, most genuine apology for taking away Wyatt's success, for taking him from her. She'd expected a shift in the dynamic between them when this finally happened, but tonight there was no satisfaction, no triumph. If anything, she felt the pangs of her own buried regret. She'd never seen him as vulnerable, and she wanted to console him. She reached out a hand, but Henry leaned back in his seat, out of reach.

Catherine turned away, then forced herself up, until she was standing right behind him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and whispered into his ear, “I'm sorry.” She wanted to comfort him yet also needed to be honest. How could she tell him what she'd known all along, that Antonia was and would be always be far too quick and nimble for him to keep? “Think about Antonia like this: you found her, you discovered her, but she's as unpredictable as a revolver with an endless supply of ammunition,” she said. “Even if she didn't mean to, she would have shot up every room of your life.”

By now, Henry's sobbing had abated, and he picked up his head, wiping his eyes. “That's one of the most awful metaphors I've ever heard,” he said.

“That's why I left the writing to Wyatt,” she replied as the lights in the house flamed on and their eyes adjusted to the sudden glare.

“He was a good writer,” Henry said. “A great prose stylist and storyteller. It's very rare to find both in one person.” Of course, without having to mention her, she knew quite well that he was also referring to Antonia.

“Yes, he was,” she said. “Underappreciated and underrated.”

“I hope the essay helps change that,” he said, rising, his eyes more alert now, his voice more sober.

She watched his eyes as he looked about the room, taking in the shoddy countertops and avocado green appliances, the ringed stains on the table. Yes, see what you have done, she thought, but instead said, “Even so, Henry, it still doesn't change a thing. The summer term's nearly over, which means properties open up and become available.” She paused, thinking, Tell him he can't stay. Tell him he has to go. But she couldn't say it, not now. “What about your house? Isn't it finished yet?” she asked tentatively.

“My house,” he said, “is structurally unsound. The foundation has cracks. It'll be months.”

“Months,” she said, startled, finding this news nearly as shocking as his news about Antonia. “You must have other options, Henry. What about going back to the hotel?”

“Catherine, you ought to be a little more grateful,” he said, standing. There was nothing left of the watery, unsteady voice. It was cool once again and officious, scolding. “I signed your lease, and I've paid you your rent. Do you think you'll find another tenant like me here?”

“That isn't the point and you know it,” she said. They were very close, as close physically as they'd been in several years, and she smelled the whiskey on his breath again, and she could see the silver hairs in his beard, and the wiry muscles of his chest through his shirt. A momentary flash of desire shot through her, then was gone.

“Just another couple of months,” he said. “That should be plenty of time,” but he didn't elaborate at all about what “plenty of time” meant. Still, she suspected he was no longer talking about a place to live but something else entirely. She wondered what it was, if Henry himself even knew, because he already seemed far away, beyond this summer night.

“I can only give you another few days,” she said, wishing she could lie. My sister's going through a terrible divorce and needs a place to stay, she might have said, or even better, She's very sick and I told her she could come stay with me. Of course, there was no sister, and no lie she could tell that Henry would not have seen through immediately.

Ignoring her remark, he turned toward the door. As he did, she surprised herself and reached out to hug him. Her hands sliced the air where Henry had just been, and she pulled back.

“I'm sorry about you and Antonia,” she said.

“That makes two of us,” he responded, and then he was gone, drifting across the slick deck.

The rain eased into a gentle drizzle, the wind relaxing, as Catherine cleaned up the kitchen, wiping away Henry's muddy footprints. Then, collecting the lease, and Henry's check from the table, she returned to the sitting room, where she glanced out the window, the silence falling through the house. She settled on the sofa as a thought, persistent and nagging, hung in the still air. It was a thought she'd had for days, a terrible realization that in wanting an end to her loneliness, she herself had brought Henry back into her life. Henry is more than just your tenant, she thought, as he's always been.

She looked over the lease, then the check, letting out a laugh as she read the amount—ten thousand dollars—finding it utterly absurd. It was far too much, insulting in its implication. First the review, then the essay rescinding the review, and now this? She couldn't help but wonder what Henry was up to.

Taking the last sip of wine, Catherine returned to the kitchen and set the glass in the sink. Then, from the table, she grabbed the cigarette and the matches he'd left behind. Outside, on the deck, where a cool breeze had replaced the rain, Catherine smoked the cigarette, imagining the many ways she would spend Henry's money. She allowed herself this reverie, because, like most spells woven at night, this one, too, would lift, and come morning, she knew she'd have no other choice than to rip up the check, which she should have done to begin with.

All You Do Is Sit at a Typewriter and Bleed

_____

Just before dusk the next day, Henry got on his bike, passing Antonia's house, wanting to stop, since he hadn't seen her for a couple days, not since she'd come by the cottage. The house was dark; her car was not in the drive. As he rode past, he thought about Ezra and the ruined weekend. The boy had called him once he'd got back into the city. It had been the middle of the night. “Why are you with her?” he'd shouted, fuming.

Henry had wondered this himself, though he'd also wondered how he could ever live without her. He rode over the Kissing Swans Bridge, so like the bridge he had to cross to get to his house on Osprey Point. So many bridges, he thought, remembering another bridge, this one in Vermont, one of those covered bridges, and he'd just found out he'd won the Pulitzer Prize again and the future yawned bright and sparkling ahead of him. Joyce, his wife, had handed Ezra to him, and he had held the baby in his arms, cradling him as the summer afternoon cradled them. It was love, it had to be, he thought now, as he hurried across the bridge, his thoughts traveling from that bridge in Vermont to this one in Winslow, and Wyatt Strayed suddenly reared up in his memory.

The rain hadn't stopped until the late afternoon, keeping him indoors, but now the sun was out again, the day steamy and choked with humidity. He went speeding down Old Devil Moon Road; ahead, his house, the yellow Italianate, rose up through the evergreens. Around him, the light was still bright, though he knew that it would soon fade. He could not stay long; besides, he had work to do. Even then, he suspected that he would find himself at Antonia's door later, his desire for her reawakened. He wondered if she missed him as much as he missed her.

He knew that he'd behaved badly, and his accusations, he suspected, had been a part of his own fears. When she'd come to the cottage, wanting in, he'd refused her. How could he have seen her, knowing what she'd done? It was a violation that ran deep, yet even Henry, who disliked Antonia's father, Linwood, felt sorry for him. She should have known better than to keep the story and novel a secret from him. Her vague past had finally caught up to her, to them. With horror, Henry again thought, Oh, Antonia, what have you done to us?

His house lay in disrepair, and he took it in, sighing. Behind him, a car crept past, slowing as Henry turned to watch it. Then the car stopped abruptly, headlights slicing through the dusk. As it did, Henry tried to make out the driver. He couldn't, however. Then it was going again, sending up gravel in its wake. Henry watched until it was gone, then went into the house to find the key. There were hanging plastic sheets and white coats of dust everywhere. Poor house, he thought as he crossed to the secretary that was also covered in plastic. He kept the key hidden here because he had to, because not even Antonia could know about it.

A thirty-six-year age difference between them, and it hadn't mattered. He had trusted her—would trust her again, he thought, he hoped—though he would also have to watch her more closely. He thought back to that first time three years ago, the pure alchemy of it, her nakedness under him, the moment when he entered her and she was no longer his student and he was no longer her professor. Skin and nothing more; everything else burned away on his damp, wrinkled sheets. He felt this burn still, even now, as he grabbed the key, then went out the back door, following the last of the light into the underbrush, the path that led into the heart of his property, which sat at the base of the mountains.

Around him, the frogs bellowed and the crickets chirped, the wood a living, breathing thing. The walk seemed endless, the density of flora unyielding. The wood swallowed the light and there was darkness now on all sides of him, but he remembered, he had to remember—and then he took a right and then a left and came to a small clearing and there it was again, hidden under the tarp—his late father's 1958 Porsche Cabriolet. Once a month, he'd been coming out here to check on the car. He never drove it—he wasn't supposed to drive—though tonight, out of some desire to know that he could go at any time, he got behind the wheel. More, though, he wanted to show the car to Antonia, to regain what had been lost between them, to restore her sense of faith in him and his own faith in himself. Trust her, he thought. Trust her. He started the car's engine and drove out of the wood down a path that he himself had cleared and around the house to the road. Then he was crossing the bridge again and finally pulling up to Antonia's house. There were lights on inside. Outside, though, it was dark and no one would see him.

As he got out of the car, he thought again, Trust her. Let her know that what she has done is not irrevocable. There is a way through it. I can fix it. On the veranda, Henry found one of her cigarettes still burning, and he heard music spilling out the open windows. He knocked on the door, but she didn't answer, so he used his key. “Antonia,” he called out. “Where are you?”

He wandered through the house, the air pungent, full of the scent of Chinese peonies, which he'd had a local florist deliver to her this morning. The vase sat on the kitchen table, the card beside it unopened. She had sent his son away in the middle of the night, and that was wrong, though Ezra had had no right to tell Linwood Lively where to find her. No right at all.

As he sniffed the peonies, he had a sudden flash of fear. Had her father come back here? Or was it Royal, this uncle of hers? This man, he now realized, who had burst into his office, wanting to know where Antonia was living. The violence in him sent Henry running out of the office. He'd brought her to Winslow, but he apparently couldn't protect her, and this thought saddened him greatly. Though she hated Winslow, she stayed for him. She'd set herself up in this house and had thrown herself into her second novel. He knew that the writing kept her focused and happy and that her happiness was his.

He went to the study door and knocked, saying her name, because he thought he heard some movement behind the door. He tried the knob and turned it, feeling suddenly that he was making a huge mistake. This was her world, her sanctuary, and how many times had he scolded her for coming into his study without permission? He would just open the door to see if she were all right, that's all, though when he did so he found the room empty. He took a step into the room, then another, until he was at her desk, staring down at the Olivetti typewriter, Wyatt's typewriter. On the desk, he was surprised to see a snapshot of his house at Osprey Point. Above the desk on the wall was a quotation from Hemingway: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed.”

He wasn't going to read the page that was rolled into the typewriter, though a word caught his eye and then he was looking down at it, winded. He saw his name and he saw Catherine's name and Wyatt's name and as he read the sentences to himself, he understood what she was doing and he left the room, nauseated. Oh, Antonia, he thought. Oh, God. He removed his glasses and ran his head under the faucet in the kitchen, then walked over to the vase of peonies. He wanted to rip them apart, to tear the delicate heads off each blossom until nothing of them remained. He searched inside himself for the original urge to see her again, to trust her again, but it was gone, erased. She'd taken from him before, and if he let her, he knew she'd take from him forever.

Henry got back into the Porsche and pulled away, the lights of Antonia's house fading behind him, just as he prayed his fury might fade as well. It didn't. In fact, the farther and faster he drove, the more it came at him. He gripped the wheel, white-knuckled, and drove with a recklessness he hadn't experienced in ages, not since he'd been on that beach road. After returning the car to the wood, he jumped back on his bike and pedaled hurriedly to the cottage. Once inside, he wandered around the space, confused and hurt, going over what he'd just discovered. How could she? The story of Catherine and Wyatt and him? It seemed impossible to him that he hadn't been able to sense it, that all this time she'd been excavating that story. Yet it was hard for him not to understand her desire to know all of him, especially since he would tell her nothing about his past, which of course only made her more curious. It was, he saw at last, his own fault. Yet he also saw that if she really loved him, she would let it all go. She wouldn't. She couldn't. Trust her with it, he thought. Then he laughed at himself for even indulging the thought. He would not abet her in her ruin of him or of Catherine. He would not stand by and watch her trespass. He wasn't sure what to do, so he went into the study and sat down in the chair and waited for her to come to him, as he suspected she would.

W
HEN
A
NTONIA CAME
t
o the cottage later, it had started to rain again. He let her in as she reached into her pocket and pulled out his glasses. “I thought you might need these,” she said sweetly. “You must have left them the last time you came over.”

He had another flash of fear—the glasses that he'd left on her kitchen counter tonight. Then she has to know, he thought, shuddering. “Do you want me to stay?” she asked, kissing him, and for the moment, he felt himself spared. He kissed her back, though it was without fire or tenderness, and the sex they had then was just the friction of two bodies, two strangers, a passionless rutting in the black. If she felt any of this, as Henry felt it, he didn't know, since he realized he had no idea what she was feeling, if he'd ever known at all. As they lay side by side, he thought about the night he'd gone to talk to Wyatt, how they'd sat on the deck until morning, until Henry had nothing left to tell him.

“I can't write it,” Henry had said, “but you can.”

To his knowledge, though, Wyatt had never written it, which meant the story still belonged to Henry and Henry alone.

It would never belong to Antonia, not as long as he was still alive.

“I forgot to thank you for the flowers,” she said, resting a hand on his chest. She kissed him again and then she was slipping into sleep. As he listened to her breathe, he wondered what it would be like if she never woke again. How this second novel of hers would go unwritten and unpublished and how he could mourn the girl he'd known, not the girl he'd come across tonight.

He had to find out if Wyatt had written what he'd told him. And since only Catherine would know for sure that's whom he would ask.