Duet for Three (21 page)

Damn it, death is death, and she is no more ready for it than a young man is (but shouldn't she be?), nor is she less than he is. Only more aware, and frightened.

Oh, she would be angry to miss it, though. If she went to that place and they filled her with needles and pills, so that it slipped past. Surely there is an instant of clarity in which things are made known. It wouldn't be fair to live for eighty years and miss the moment that made sense of it all. Or for that matter miss the moment in which it was made clear that there was no sense to be made of it.

Is this an argument that would wash with June, who appears to believe that there is already perfect sense to everything? And is it obsessive or only sensible to have death so much on her mind? Like ashes to ashes and dust to dust, she circles and returns to it.

She might, she thinks, put a little more effort into her living moments. There's some sense to be made of them, too, a kind of insurance against there being no great illumination like a sunset at the end.

FOURTEEN

“Nice nightgown,” said Herb, and they were off.

It was the only time she wore it, and then only briefly. He might have admired it, but like a gift, only as wrapping for what he was really after.

“For God's sake, June,” he said, “we're married.” And then, “For heaven's sake, relax.”

Relaxing was one thing, difficult enough. Abandonment was beyond her. What had he seen? What did he want? Did he think there was some sluttish waitress underneath her cardigans? It occurred to her that the dapper, flashing Herb, who wore trim suits and a gold signet ring on the middle finger of his right hand, may have wanted what he saw to begin with: someone respectable and proper to make a home for him. Why her, though? Why not some other teacher in some other town?

When people asked how they'd met, he liked to joke, “Oh, I picked her up.” “I wish you wouldn't tell people that,” she complained.

“But it's true, isn't it? And anyway, it's funny.”

He was never in the war, he'd pointed out in the restaurant the night they met, because he had a bit of a heart murmur. “I always tell people because otherwise they wonder. They won't buy from somebody they think just skipped out on it.” She admired his forthrightness.

It was lonely, he told her later, out on the road, driving from town to town in his beat-up blue Hudson, spending dull nights in strange hotel rooms. “You know, Junie,” he said during what she considered their courtship, “it's like coming home, heading here.” His smile was wide, and the skin crinkled around his eyes, laugh lines he called them. His hair and eyes and suits were brown. His jackets, however, concealed shiny, bright-yellow linings and a silver-plated flask in an inside pocket.

She anticipated major changes, greater than the intentions he hinted of when he said, “Sometimes I think of settling down, having a real home, not just hotel rooms all the time.” She understood, long before anything firm was said, that they would marry, he would get a proper job in town, and she would quit hers. She saw that he would no longer have to swear, complaining about some customer giving him trouble over an order, because there would be no occasion compelling bad words. Because he would be home, they would go to church together. They would fall into the right order of things.

And then there they were, running hand in hand down the stone walk after the small reception in her mother's house, turning at the end, as she had dreamed, to wave goodbye to Aggie, and climbing into the blue Hudson to drive to their new home five blocks away. Where Herb looked up from the bed as she entered the room and said, “Nice nightgown. Where'd you get it?”

“My mother made it.”

First Aggie with her talk of pleasure, and then Herb telling her to relax. “Enjoy” was a word they both used. It's beyond her how people can talk as if it's something necessary. Which it is not. Catholics may have the wrong idea of things in general, but look at their priests, look at their nuns.

And what sort of expectation makes chastity a virtue until suddenly a person is supposed to just throw it all away, as if the rules no longer applied? Not that she didn't understand that chastity itself would go by the boards; it was just that no one had mentioned relinquishing herself entirely. And here it turned out that Aggie was right, he was a bodily creature. She felt disappointment seeping out of him, but how dared he? She was no movie-house usherette, or waitress, and if that was what he wanted, he should have married one. He became a different person in this light, which wasn't fair, since she remained unchanged.

She watched him at breakfast and thought how unpleasant it looked, a man eating eggs and talking at the same time.

“I wish we could have had a honeymoon,” he said. “I'm sorry I have to be back on the road tomorrow. If it were summer holidays you could come with me. Do you want to do that this summer?”

But was he not going to quit? By summer, surely, he would have a job here and be coming home every night, although that struck her now as a not entirely pleasing prospect. “Whatever made you think that?” he asked, amazed. “I like what I do, and I'd hate being stuck in one place all the time. Besides, I'm good at selling.”

“But you always complain about it. You always say it's lonely and you get tired of all the driving.”

“Of course I complain, everybody does. You complain about your job too, but that doesn't mean you're going to quit.”

But surely that was exactly what she was going to do: quit and stay home and have children and a normal life. Surely that was the point: to have an ordinary life after so many odd years.

“I don't see how we could afford that, Junie. Weren't you listening when we talked about buying the house? We were counting on your salary, at least for a while. I make a good living, but it's commissions, it's not regular like yours, it goes up and down. I thought we'd agreed not to change things for a while.”

She could not remember any such agreement. What she recalled was some joking between Herb and Aggie about June having a steady job, and Herb saying something like how lucky her pupils were to have what he called a dish like her for a teacher. “Boy,” he said, “it's sure different from when I was in school.” And Aggie just kind of looking at him. June hadn't said anything, but she was sure she also hadn't agreed to anything.

She stood to clear the breakfast table. “We'd better get ready, it's after ten.”

“What for?”

“Well, for church.”

“Hell, you're not going this morning, are you? This is all the honeymoon we've got, just today. Come on, stay here with me. I know the first time isn't so good, but now it'll be different.”

How did he know? On what experience did he base this? She regarded him coldly.

“No, I always go. You should too, people will expect you.”

“Why would they? Anyway, what I expect is that the first day we're married you'll stay home.”

She was furious that when she was leaving after the service, the minister shook her hand and said, smiling, “I'm surprised to see you this morning, I must say. But I see we didn't get your new husband out. We'll have to work on that.”

When she got home, he insisted they go upstairs. But he was wrong that it got better. He slipped into a nap afterward, but she got right up. She found his hair cream made the pillows smell too sweet.

She was making supper when he came downstairs, sliding an arm around her waist, nuzzling his face into the back of her neck. These gestures, which she might have enjoyed a few days ago, taking them as ends in themselves, now were a threat. The difference was being married. The difference was that before, she had a right to make things stop, and now, of course, she had no such right at all. He had all rights and there was no relaxing, the way there was with the power of God and the inevitability of His will. God wouldn't be breathing down her neck like this. God was strict and could be harsh, but at least didn't come sneaking up behind.

Still. Was he not handsome, lounging in the chair listening to a program of band music on the radio? Was she not proud to have married him?

He was up and packing early in the morning, kissed her without paying much attention, and waved goodbye from the driveway with what seemed an inappropriate light-heartedness. At school, other teachers smiled and congratulated her, and that was nice. How strange, though, to be proud with other people of being married, which meant being wanted, but when it was just the two of them, to wish not to be wanted quite so much. It all seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot.

Funny, going home to a new and empty house: not seeing him stretched loose-limbed in the living room, and making a meal just for herself. She turned on the radio for company. It was a little scary to be alone, and she carefully locked the doors, now that she knew exactly what there was to be afraid of. She turned off the radio, in case there were noises she ought to be hearing.

Lying in bed, she discovered that the house had an entire orchestra of sounds, from stealthy steps on the stairs, to clicks of doors opening or papers downstairs being shuffled. An array of cracks and groans and heaves. “Oh really, don't be so silly,” she scolded herself, and slipped out of bed to pray. “Oh God, help me.” But circumstances had changed. “Oh God,” she corrected, “help us.”

Actually, once she got used to it, it was rather pleasant not having to make elaborate meals, going to bed early if she felt like it, or staying up late. Privacy was good, being able to kneel beside the bed and pray aloud instead of standing out in the hall whispering. On the weekend with Herb, she hadn't even attempted a bedside prayer. Well, she wouldn't have had much chance, with him grabbing, and then, too, prayers were private things, not intended to be witnessed.

She was quite accustomed to being on her own by the time he arrived home; the gravel crunching in the driveway, the car door slamming and then the trunk lid, and then there he was with a suitcase in each hand and a grin on his face. “Junie,” he cried, dropping the cases, gripping his hands around her narrow waist, lifting her off the floor and giving her a little shake and a whirl that seemed playful enough, but lacking the innocence of her father's similar embraces. “Oh, Jesus, I'm glad to be home, what a trip. I missed my new bride, did you miss me?” The noise he was making! All this shouting and prancing-dancing through the house. “You don't know how much I've been looking forward to this. I've been telling everybody for two weeks about my new wife and my new house. I tell you, I'm a changed man. I want my slippers and a drink. I want a fireplace to sit in front of, isn't it too bad we don't have one? Maybe we could knock out a wall and get one put in, what do you think?”

She, however, had seen quite enough of walls being knocked out, and then there'd be all the ashes to clean up. “Oh no, fireplaces are such filthy things,” she said, and knew immediately she shouldn't have.

He looked angry, then disappointed. “Oh well. What's for supper? I'm going to go change and get comfortable.”

She was annoyed at herself for being hurt when later he just fell asleep. Really, she supposed, the poor man couldn't win. At least the house seemed to be keeping most of its noises to itself, now that he was home. She wasn't even sure if she'd remembered to lock the back door. Anyone might come in, but she wasn't afraid. In the quiet darkness, she even felt a little grateful to him.

“What do you say to company tonight?” he suggested in the morning. “Maybe have your mother over?”

It pleased her to have Aggie as a guest; to show her mother the proper way of things now. Also, Aggie entertained Herb, relieving June, since the day had gone in lengthy silences. It seemed they didn't have a great deal to talk about once he'd told her it had been “a hell of a two weeks on the road”, and she had said that nothing much out of the ordinary had happened while he was gone. She supposed silences were all right between married people, but still, surely there ought not to be this nervous rooting around for topics to discuss. Her mind went blank wondering what they might talk about. What did they talk about before?

Obviously, Aggie had the right idea. She simply asked him about people he met on the road and what they were like and if he went to their homes and how the towns looked and what he might have seen at the movies. He grew quite animated. “Mind the car springs,” he laughed as he left to drive Aggie home. “I can't afford new ones.” Amazing, making jokes about her weight.

“That was nice,” he said later. “I like your mother.”

Obviously.

“It's funny you don't take after her. I mean,” he added quickly, “in looks. You'd never take you for her daughter.”

“I told you, I'm like my father.”

“Yeah, I guess. I've seen pictures. They must have made a pretty strange-looking couple.”

“They did.”

The two of them were a pretty strange couple, too, although not so dissimilar in looks. The more he reached for her, the more she moved away. Casual touches were startling, knowing now where they might lead. She grew more accustomed to his absences, and more fond of them, as well.

People she'd never before noticed particularly now stopped to speak to her on the street: his acquaintances. “How's old Herb? Back in town this weekend, is he?” Instead of being herself, out from Aggie's thumb, she found she was now his wife.

“It's my business to be friendly,” he told her, and invited men over on Saturday nights when he was home to play poker, while she made sandwiches for them all.

“No signs of a little one yet?” women asked, stopping to chat on the street, nudging her.

“Not yet,” smiling bravely. The question was like having these people watching when Herb came home. It was bad enough knowing God could see, and possibly even her father, although she tried to avoid the thought of that since it was paralysing, and her paralysis enraged Herb. “Oh, for God's
sake
,” he muttered, and sometimes just gave up.

Oh, but she did want to be desired. She dreamed of being desired, when he was away. Just not in a bed with flesh; more from a distance, maybe.

At some point he stopped calling her Junie when it was just the two of them; although when the men came to play cards he might turn and slap her lightly on the rear and say, “Hey, Junie, we got any more of those sandwiches?” As if, she thought, she were a horse he owned, thumping its rump, showing it off.