Beebo Brinker Chronicles 4 - Journey To A Woman (11 page)

And Beth, for whom the whole situation had taken such a sickening turn, was caught between pity and disgust “I—I don't mean to leave you, Vega,” she said at last, hoping that her phraseology would leave her an out “But don't call Charlie. Things are bad enough as it is. Please, leave him out of it."

She hated to say it, for it gave Vega a powerful ace to play, but she spoke the truth when she admitted that things were already bad enough at home.

There had been a sort of armed truce declared between Charlie and herself. They had very little to say to each other, but for the children's sake they put on a show of life-as-usual. Beth reached a point where she hated to leave the house, as if her love affair—if the word “love” belongs there—had changed her physically and might give her away to her neighbors. She did the marketing and took the children out, but that was all.

Housework seemed an interminable chore to her. She had never liked it, any more than she liked cooking. But she had always done what was necessary. Now even that oppressed her to such an extent that she would often let things go until the last moment, sometimes failing to make up the beds until just before Charlie got home, and letting days, weeks, go by without dusting or vacuuming. The worse the house got the harder it was for her to do anything about it. She wanted to shut her eyes and forget it.

And all the time, every day, at every hour and in every imaginable posture, she dreamed of Laura. She dreamed of the romance, unfettered with family obligation or dishwashing, free of all the daily drudgery she so despised, free of a husband who was jealous and narrow-minded, free of children who were noisy and nerve-wracking.

Beth yearned for Laura. She was almost possessed with her. It was as if, out of the blue, she had fallen in love with her all over again; and, in a way, she had. She was in love with her own lost freedom, her own smooth young face, her college sophistication, her exotic love for a strange and fascinating girl. All the things that were once but were no more, all the things Beth had been and was no longer. These she loved. And Laura personified them.

To while away the hours, she read. On her shopping trips she picked up books—every book she could find on the subject of homosexuality and Lesbianism. She read them with passionate interest, and found a release in them she had not expected. Most of them were novels with tragic endings. Some were even dull, at least for those whose ruling interest in life had nothing to do with their own sex. Some of them depressed her, but all of them interested her and she gained a feeling of companionship with some of the writers which alleviated her solitude a little. She wrote letters to a few, the ones who impressed her most, who seemed to understand best what it was like to be gay and to be alone and starved for love; for less than love, even—for sympathetic companionship.

A handful of them wrote back to her and she established a correspondence with one or two that relieved her a little. She looked forward to their letters eagerly and poured out her desperate lonesomeness and bewilderment to them. After a few weeks they had all deserted her but one, who seemed really interested in her, named Nina Spicer.

Nina's letters came in oversized envelopes with the name of her publisher in the corner, and Beth read each one avidly. She knew dimly that although Nina Spicer was gay there was very little else they had in common. That became clear from her letters. But Nina had become intrigued with her and Beth was grateful for the interest. It was a bridge into another world where she longed hopelessly to be, and it comforted her.

The thought began to grow in Beth that the only way out of her depression was to go back to Chicago and search for Laura. Charlie would refuse, of course, and he'd fight it all the way, but she had to get out, shed her present life, try to find herself in a new environment with new people.

Chicago ... it sounded beautiful, romantic as a foreign port to her, for the first time in her life. She had grown up there, she knew her way around. But it had never appeared as anything but huge and dirty and familiar, with sporadic excitements available.

Laura had grown up there, too. And suddenly Beth knew that she had to get to Chicago. She would go if it meant a divorce; even if it meant giving up her children. No sacrifice seemed out of line to her. Uncle John would take her in. She could always feed him stories and hide the truth from him. The idea of actually seeing Laura again awakened a trembling hope in her that came very near, at her best moments, to being happiness.

She spent three days trying to figure out a good way to broach the subject. Nothing had changed between herself and Charlie. He spoke to her when necessary and he spent the nights on his side of the bed, never touching her except by accident. His silent suffering both touched and exasperated her, like Vega's. Mostly it made her mad.

There was a secret woman in Beth, a woman capable of a wonderful and curious love for other women, and she wanted to dominate Beth. But, tragically for Charlie and her family, this tormented woman could not feel more for a man than a sort of friendly respect. If that was spurned she had nothing else to offer. And Charlie wanted passionate love and devotion, not a buddy who was more woman-oriented than he was.

It all came out in a single bright and anguished explosion. Beth had cast about for a way to explain herself to him; a hopeless job before it was begun, for she could not begin to understand herself. And when she saw the futility of it, she gave up and recklessly threw the whole range of her misery before him, like a picture on a screen.

She waited until the children were in bed and Charlie was watching the TV in the living room. She came in and sat down in a chair facing him. He was stretched out on the couch with his head on a hill of pillows, looking intently at the glowing screen in hopes of forgetting his problems for a little while.

"Charlie?” she said, and because she had not approached him for any reason for several weeks he turned his head and looked at her with surprise.

"What?” he said.

Beth swallowed once, to be sure her voice would come out clear and determined. “I'm going to go home. To Chicago."

He stared at her briefly and then turned unseeing eyes back to the set. “I doubt it,” he said. “You wouldn't want to leave Vega that long."

"Vega can go to hell. She's driving me crazy,” Beth confessed. He already believed the truth, although he had no proof of it. So why in God's name am I pretending? she thought defiantly. Suddenly it seemed easier and even cleaner to be frank.

"Don't tell me the great romance is fading?” he said, still not looking at her.

She gazed at his face she had once so loved and she wished, for the sake of that decaying love, that he would be kind, that he would say things that would not make her hate him.

"The great romance never existed,” she said.

"If you're trying to tell me it was all platonic, don't bother,” he said.

"I'm trying to tell you I'm not in love with Vega Purvis,” she blurted. “I never was."

"That's funny!” said Charlie. “I got the other impression."

"Well, I thought I was in love with her,” she said awkwardly, thinking, hoping the confession would unburden her at the same time that it destroyed Vega's worst weapon against her. But suddenly the words were ugly and hard to shape and she wished she had simply told him she was going away and left it at that.

"I—I thought I loved her the night I took her the whiskey, at the Knickerbocker. And I discovered that I didn't. That's all."

"After a little mutual exploration?” His voice was sarcastic. “Shall I send you a gold plaque in honor of your extra-marital affairs?"

She stood up and stamped her foot and started to speak, but he added quickly, “And don't talk to me the way you talk to your children. I'll take you up and beat the hell out of you, I ‘swear I will. For their sakes."

"Charlie, I'm going to Chicago!” she said flatly, finally. “You're not going to run out on this, Beth. You have a responsibility to me and the kids. Nobody held a gun to your head when we, got married. Why, you weren't even pregnant. You married me because you wanted to marry me, and by God, you're still married to me. And you're going to stay married to me until you grow up and learn to face your responsibilities."

"Charlie,” she said, suddenly earnest and almost scared, “I can't stand this any more."

"Can't stand what? No lovers? None of your lady friends suits you?"

For a second she thought she would explode with grief and fury, but she clamped her eyes shut and controlled herself. “I can't stand living with a man,” she said, and suddenly the tears began to flow. She went on speaking, ignoring them. “It's not your fault you're a man—” “Thanks,” he snarled.

"And it's not my fault I need a woman. You have to understand that, Charlie. I'm not doing this because I want to hurt you. I'm not gay because I enjoy it. I don't even know if I'm gay at all. I wish to God, I wish with all my heart, that I could make a life with you and the children. I wish all I needed to be happy was what other woman need—a home and a man and children. I thought I was like other women when we got married, or I never would have committed myself to a lifetime with you. I thought it was what I needed and wanted, or believe me I would have spared us both. I would have climbed aboard that train with Laura nine years ago. But I thought she was different and I was normal. And I was in love with you."

He sighed deeply, covering his face for a moment with his hands.

"I remember Laura,” he said then, gazing into space. “I remember her so well, with that pale face, rather thin, and those big blue eyes. I remember how she adored you and how pathetic I thought she was. I remember how shocked I was when I found out that you had encouraged her. But I was always so sure, in spite of everything, that you were basically normal and that being married and having a couple of kids would straighten you out so easily. I was so sure of myself,” and she saw his self-doubt and confusion now and it touched her. “I thought because I was a man and because I loved you so terribly that we'd be able to work out anything together. I thought that living with me would give you a lifelong preference for my love. Real love, a man's love. The kind of love that only a man can give a woman."

"That's not the only real love, Charlie,” she said, sinking to the chair again, and leaning toward him, tense with the need to make him understand a little, now, at long last. “I thought I'd get over it too when Laura went away, and I thought I had. It was years after we were married that I began to feel like this, and at first I didn't even know what it was. It wasn't till Vega that I even realized what was wrong with me. Charlie, maybe if I could just have a sort of vacation from you."

"Vacation? How can you take a vacation from a marriage? It's a permanent condition,” he said, and she could tell from his voice that it didn't make the first glimmer of sense to him.

"I know it isn't sensible, and I've tried to fight it, but it overwhelms me,” she said. “I wonder, ‘What in hell am I married for anyway? My kids are miserable, I'm miserable, Charlie's miserable.’ If I were doing any good with all this suffering it might be worth while. If it made Skipper and Polly happy, if it made you happy, maybe it would be worth it all. But it doesn't. We're all unhappy. Charlie ... please understand."

"You can help yourself, Beth,” he said coldly.

"No, I can't,” she said. “That's the awful part of it. That's what scares me so. I feel my irritation turning into hatred, almost. I want to get away so badly that I don't think I can stand it sometimes."

"Get away from what? Yourself? You have to take yourself with you wherever you go, you know."

"No, I want to get closer to myself, I want to know myself, Charlie. I don't even know who I am. Or what I am."

"You're my wife!” he said sharply, as if that were the argument to end them all, to end all of her doubts with one stroke.

"I'm myself!” she cried, rising to her feet again, her fists knotted at her sides. “And all I'm doing by staying here is creating agony for the four of us."

"The five of us. You forget Vega. Apparently she's not too happy with things, if you wish she were in hell."

"Oh, Charlie, spare me! God!” she shouted. Her voice sounded nearly hysterical.

"Keep it down,” he said. “If you don't wake the kids up you'll scare the neighbors to death."

For a long trembling moment she stood there, unable to speak through her sobs and unable to look at his tired and disappointed face. Finally she said, whispering, “I don't know who I am, Charlie. Just saying I'm your wife doesn't tell me any more than I've known for years, and that isn't enough."

"You're either straight or you're gay, Beth. Take your pick.” He couldn't yield to her, he couldn't be generous. He had been through too much and his restraint ran too high. He stood to lose a wife he loved, through that wife's lack of self-understanding. He might see her transformed into a type of woman he neither understood nor liked, before his very eyes.

"It's not that easy,” she said, appalled at his attitude. “You aren't either black or white, you're all shades of gray in between. It might be the kind of thing I could get over and learn to live with, and it might be the kind of thing that will change my whole life irrevocably."

"What if you find out you're nothing but a goddamn Lesbian?” he said in that rough voice that carried his grief so clearly, and he wounded her heart forever with his words.

Her patience snapped like a stick bent too far. Without a word—words had never seemed so inadequate, so meaningless, so useless between two people born to the same native tongue—she turned and went into the bedroom and emptied all of her dresser drawers on the bed. Charlie watched her while she marched in white-faced fury into the basement and hauled two big bags up the stairs.

She dragged them through the living room and he leaned forward to say softly, “You fool, Beth. You fool!"

But she couldn't look at him. She thought she would either faint with her hatred or somehow kill him with the frenzy of it.

In the bedroom she stuffed things into the bags helter skelter. What didn't fit didn't go. The rest was left behind in a tangle.