Beebo Brinker Chronicles 4 - Journey To A Woman (13 page)

"Ill just say. this,” she told Uncle John when he pressed her. “I've left Charlie. He has the children; they're all fine. Everything is my fault. It would kill me to have to talk about it now. I'll try to explain it later. I'm so tired and miserable I just want to be alone."

So they gave her their hospitality and let her have her way. Uncle John was anxious and he even thought of calling Charlie and demanding the facts. But his wife restrained him. “Let's at least hear her side of it first,” she said. “She did say it was her fault, after all."

Beth had no intention of explaining to them what couldn't be explained. She wrote to Charlie, just a note. She said she would be with Uncle John for a while and she'd let him know any new plans. Cleve wrote to her within a couple of days to say the kids were well but missed her badly, and Charlie had become very taciturn at the office. He had found a woman to care for the children during the day. Beth wondered impatiently what sort of woman she was—whether she was kindly and whether she liked children and whether she fixed them their favorite breakfasts, and what she looked like. There was no mention of Vega in Cleve's letter.

As soon as she had a little strength, a little sense, she determined to find Laura. The place to start was with Laura's father. Beth, didn't suppose that Laura was still living with him; they had never gotten along, and Laura, when she left Beth nine years ago, had been an entirely different girl from the one her father thought he had raised. She had found herself and had begun to live for the first time, and Beth guessed that her first move had been to leave her father. But Beth had to start somewhere, and so, when she had been in Chicago two days, she called Merrill Landon. It was mid-afternoon; it had taken her till then to get up her courage. She wasn't sure whether she was more afraid of finding Laura or of not finding her. What would Laura think of Beth, now that her former lover was no longer a radiant college girl? Of course Laura would be older too, but she was still four years younger than Beth, and Beth had lived with a mountain of dissatisfaction and discontent that had left its mark on her pretty face.

Merrill Landon was not in. Beth had to call again at seven. She approached the phone in a nervous sweat, afraid that her voice would break or her throat go dry and betray her nerves to him. She had to be very casual.

This time she got him from his dinner.

Damn! she thought while the servant summoned him. He probably hates to be interrupted.

"Hello?” he said, and his voice was deep and rough. He spoke in the same tone he would have used to bark an order to a subordinate at the newspaper where he worked. Beth gasped a little before she could say, “Mr. Landon? My name is Beth Cullison. I—I mean Beth Ayers.” Her maiden name! God, she thought in dismay. But there was no time to scold herself.

"Well, which is it?” he boomed.

"Ayers. Mrs. Ayers,” she answered, trying to sound calm. She raced on, hoping to smooth over his first impression, “I'm an old college friend of Laura's. I'm visiting in Chicago and I thought it would be nice if we could get together."

Her voice went dry and she had to stop. There was an awkward pause. “A college friend?” he said, as if there were no such things.

"You are Laura's father, aren't you?” she asked timidly.

"Yea.” He waited so long to answer that it made her wonder. “What do you want with Laura, Mrs. Ayers?"

"I just wanted to talk to her. If she's there."

"I haven't seen Laura for the last eight years,” he said, and Beth's heart went cold. He added thoughtfully, “You said your name was Cullison. Were you one of Laura's roommates at the university?"

For some reason she was afraid to answer yes. Could it possibly be that Laura might have told him about the curious love that had sprung up between them? It was unlikely that he would remember her name unless it had special significance for him. What if he had forced the truth out of his daughter?

"Well?” he said, surprise and impatience in his voice at her delay. “Maybe you can't remember that far back:"

"Yes. Yes, I was her roommate. Excuse me, I—where is Laura now?"

"Mrs. Ayers, why don't you come over here tonight? I'd like to talk to you.” And when she hesitated again in a welter of uncertainty he said, “Are you far from here?"

"I have a car,” she said. ‘I'll come."

She took Aunt Elsa's Buick and drove out to the Landon house. It wasn't far; it was on one of the pretty shaded streets of Evanston. Merrill Landon lived there alone with his two servants. He had been there since he and Laura's mother first married and nothing could tempt him away.

There was nothing left of Laura's mother now but the memories. But they bound Landon to her and kept him in the home she had furnished, where he could still see traces of her taste, her touch. No other woman had ever replaced her for him. Except, in a strange and uncomprehended way, Laura. And because she couldn't be her mother, because she was only a sweet shadow, a photo transparency, he blamed her and was very hard with her.

When Laura had at last understood where she had unwittingly failed him, she left him. She was his daughter, not his wife; that was her crime. And because he couldn't have her he couldn't forgive her for living. She was a constant threat to his virtue, a painful reminder of his dead wife. The knowledge of his tormented desire gave her the courage to turn her back on him and run.

He had found her once, after that, almost by accident, and they had it out in words, the awful incredible words that had never been spoken between them before. The rupture had been complete after that. He admitted that he wanted her. He took her in his bearish arms and kissed her mouth brutally. And Laura, in her shock, told him what she was, a Lesbian. And who had done it to her; her own father. So they knew the very worst of each other, had known now for years, and had lost each other. But the knowledge, though it hurt, had washed away the bitterness.

Over the chasm of years and miles, Merrill Landon had come to love his daughter in a new way. He had never tried to pursue her, after that one shattering night in a New York hotel room when they had revealed themselves to each other, but he had spent the long years since then wondering about her, imagining how she might be living and with whom. His thoughts were mostly tender, sometimes resentful, always lonely. But he was proud and a little afraid of himself with her, and he would not seek her out again.

Beth rang his bell, ignorant of all that had passed between him and Laura in the years that preceded her visit. No servant opened to her, as she had expected, but Merrill Landon himself, as though he, too, was anxious for the meeting. She had never seen him before in her life but she knew him instantly. His flesh was Laura's and her whole body was suddenly covered with shiverings.

He was a huge man; not big like Charlie, not tall and long-muscled, but just big. Square-chested, slope-shouldered, powerfully built, with his dark hair and heavy beard. He stood high from the ground but you didn't realize it until you came close to him; the chunkiness of his construction gave him the look of a shorter man. In his heavy features she saw very little of Laura, who resembled most her mother. And yet there was something there, faint but visible, that kept the shivers coming in Beth.

He sized her up like a seasoned journalist. “Come in, Mrs. Ayers,” he said, and showed her into a comfortable den stacked high with books and papers. It was apparently his study, the work room where he wrote his daily editorials, read his books, did his dreaming, perhaps. Beth sat in a large ox-blood leather chair. She was afraid to lean back in it for fear of getting lost, of making herself look small and shy to this man she wanted so much to impress with her social ease. It would have helped immeasurably if she could have guessed by looking at him how much he knew of her love for Laura. Landon mixed her a drink. “What are you doing in Chicago, Beth?” he asked with his back to her, and the sound of her proper name startled her.

Now he thinks he's got me, she thought. I'm here in his house and he thinks he's going to find out about Laura and me once and for all. I'm not even Mrs. Ayers any more, I'm just Beth. Just a school girl.

She told him she was visiting her uncle, she was living in California, she had two children. That was all. His questions were brief, as though she were a socialite he had to interview for the next day's paper, and she tailored her answers the same way. But Beth wanted to ask her own questions. She was the one who urgently needed to know, who had left her home and kids and husband and come all this way to find this man's daughter—and perhaps, at the same time, herself. She gazed around the room, taking in the working disorder, the handsome, slightly worn furniture. Laura knew all this, Beth thought; it was as familiar to her as her own room, and the thought made Beth ache for her.

She interrupted Landon to ask him, “Where is she, Mr. Landon? Maybe there's still time for me to see her tonight.” He smiled at her over-bright eyes and somehow she expected his answer.

"I doubt it. She's not living in Chicago any more."

Of course not. Goddamn! That would have been too easy. I should have known. “Where is she?” she demanded, and again he smiled at the pink flush in her cheeks, the line between her eyes.

"I'd like to know myself,” he said. He was almost teasing her.

"You must have some idea,” she cried, desperately afraid that Laura would slip out of her fingers before she ever touched her again. If she had been more observant she would have seen the understanding that began to show in his smile. He was needling her for a purpose.

"I do have some idea,” he said calmly, sitting down behind his desk. “I'll gladly share it with you. If you'll do something for me, Beth."

"If I can."

"You can.” She watched him while he listened to his memories. He could hear Laura's voice in his inner ear crying, “And that's not all! Remember Beth Cullison? Remember my roommate at school? Her too, Father! She was the first! I loved her! Do you understand what I'm telling you?” That voice, sharp with the saved-up sorrows and frustrations of a young lifetime, crying at him through tears and fury of what she had become, what her true nature was! And he had understood her, at last. His perverted love for her had twisted her whole personality. He had controlled his terrible desire for years, but it had cost Laura a normal childhood.

"When you find Laura,” he said, “I want you to tell me where she is. That's all. Will you do that?"

Beth stared at him. “When I find her?” she said. “Where do I have to go?"

"Tell me her address, that's all,” he bargained. And she knew then that he could see plainly how badly she wanted Laura. She struggled to keep her face smooth, her passion under wraps. “Yes,” she said. It was a whole confession of love, that word. It said, Yes, I'll find her, I'll go to the ends of the earth, I'll do any favor for you if you'll tell me where to start, where to look.

He smiled. He had her. “She's in New York,” he said. Beth's mouth fell open. “New York!” She was dismayed. She had only been there once, when she was a little girl of ten. She didn't know the city at all. And the size of it! “But, good God, Mr. Landon, there are millions of people in New York!” she exclaimed.

'There's only one Laura. She's been there a while, she knows people."

"What people?” Her discouragement showed now, too. She couldn't have hidden it from her extraordinary host.

"If I were you I'd start in the Village,” he said. “She lived down there a while."

"I don't know the Village,” she protested. “I don't know New York at all. I can't fly to New York just to scare up an old roommate of mine.” It was supposed to throw him off the track, demonstrate her normalcy. But Merrill Landon was too far ahead of her. He knew too much that she didn't know. He saw the strength and determination in her chin, the trembling of her sensual mouth, and he smiled once again.

"You can't, but you will,” he said. “Isn't that why you're here?” There was an embarrassed silence. She didn't know how to answer without exposing herself to him. “Beth,” he said, and the gruff voice softened slightly, “I know you were in love with my daughter."

She gasped, and as he went on she gulped the rest of her drink.

"She told me so. You have a right to know that I know. She—well, she had to tell me; she didn't do it to hurt you. I've kept it to myself. I knew you from the pictures she used to have of you.” She began to cry, and into the sniffly silence he added, “I love her too. Only I can't go find her now. Someone else will have to do that for me."

When they were able to look at each other again he said, “Did you come all the way from California to find her?” She was undone. She had no secrets. He was too much for her, with his bright eyes that penetrated hers and saw so much and suspected so much more. “Yes,” she confessed. “I had to get away from my husband. I was nearly cracking up. I just wanted to see Laura again. Everything was so wonderful then, so awful now. I thought it might help. I thought maybe that was what was wrong with me."

He lighted a cigarette for her and one for himself. “Laura doesn't want to see me again,” he said. “With you it may be different. If you follow her to New York, Beth, you'll find her, somehow. I want you to tell me about her and where she's living. I won't give you cause to regret it. I've messed up her life enough as it is. Just tell me when you find her."

"All right.” She seemed to have no will now. Only a need for Laura, a need for her love so great that it would propel her onward until she found her. “Mr. Landon,” she said, looking at him with all her subterfuges stripped from her. “Why are you kind to me? Why don't you despise me for what I did to your daughter?"

"For what you did to her?” He gave a scornful little laugh that turned against himself. “If I were guiltless myself I could despise anyone I pleased. I could blame anyone I pleased. But I'm not guiltless.” His words made her feel braver. “If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, Beth. You know that, of course. Laura is a Lesbian. Sooner or later she would have understood that, whether with your help or without it."