Fury on Sunday (6 page)

And he was a jellyfish. He could no more have gone in the bedroom when she was there with some man and confront them than he could have broken into the bedroom of the White House and demanded,
What the hell are you doing, Mr. President!

He would go on pouring drinks and laughing at bad jokes and, maybe, if the pain in his flesh and mind got too unbearable he would make a faltering pass at some woman that no one else would make a pass at.

He started quickly to his elbow as Jane stood up and moved for the balcony.

He pulled back the covers, his heart thudding with fear. Everything was forgotten in an instant; his hate, his frustration, his despair. He was, once again, the simple, uncomplicated man who could do nothing but adore. Quickly he ran across the living room rug, his heavy body rocking from side to side, feet thumping on the rug. “Please don’t, Jane. Darling, please don’t. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll try to be what you…”

Jane turned from the railing and looked at him coldly.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice flat.

The way she said “you.” It was a knife turning in him.

“I—I thought maybe….”

“Thought maybe I was going to jump?” she asked acidly.

“No,” he said. “I mean, I just thought…”

She didn’t say anything and they stood there looking at each other in silence in the early morning. She stood there on the terrace flagstones like Venus in Manhattan, like a debauched Aphrodite in a sheer Tiffany creation.

“Don’t you—think you should come in?” he said falteringly, “It’s a little cold for just that.”

“Just what?”

“I—I—that gown. I mean it’s awfully thin.”

Her eyes on him were like blue ice.

“You’ll catch your death of cold,” he offered.

“That would be wonderful,” she said in a deceptive calm.

But, after a moment, she came in and went to the bar to make herself a drink.

He closed the French doors and stood there awkwardly, watching her make a drink that was nine-tenths whiskey. He swallowed and then straightened out the wrinkled twists of his pajamas. They were silly looking pajamas. He knew that. He often thought she bought them for him because she knew he would look ridiculous in them, with their little pink elephants sporting on the cloth.

“Place looks a mess,” he said.

She didn’t answer. She kept pouring whiskey.

“Guess I’d better have the woman in Monday instead of Tuesday,” he said.

She finished pouring her drink.

“How about another?” he said.

“Another what?” she said and sat down. Her nightgown slipped up over her knees and his throat moved. She looked up at him and pulled the gown up further, pleased at the mottled color it brought.

“You look like a cow in heat,” she said idly.

“Maybe I’ll have one too,” he said, trying to ignore her remark.

“One what?” she asked.

She always asked questions like that. He knew very well she was aware of what he was talking about. But unless he named his object in so many words, unless he used the noun, she would impale him on a question he felt obliged to answer.

“I’ll have a drink,” he said in a surly voice.

“Sure, why not?” she said. “Drink up, dear one.”

He didn’t know how to take that sort of remark either. He rarely knew how to take her remarks. They always had the earmarks of a trap he might fall into. It made him nervous analyzing each of her remarks before he answered them. But he had to or else he wouldn’t know what to say. And, anyway, he invariably stumbled and said the wrong thing and, suddenly, her scorn, or her mocking laughter, would surround him. Or, worse, her raw, nerve-taut fury would lash out at him and make him afraid. That was it. He was afraid of her.

He poured a little whiskey into a glass and squirted a lot of soda in after it. He knew he shouldn’t have any. But he didn’t want to go
back to bed and he had to have some excuse to stay with her. That was the situation too. He had to have an excuse to stay with his own wife. As he made the drink he looked at his watch. It was nearly three o’clock.

He sat down in a chair across from her.

“Couldn’t you sleep either?” he asked, trying to be amiable.

“Sure,” she said. “Sure, I could sleep. I’m in there now. I’m sound asleep. This is my astral projection drinking whiskey on a Sunday morning. Astral projection of Jane Sheldon drinking whiskey. Corpus slumberi of Jane Sheldon asleep in bed, dead to sorry old world.”

And what did you answer to such a remark? He insulted himself by smiling a little at her, sheepishly. He retained the smile but the muscles of his stomach knew, and they tied a knot that made him grunt and bend over in pain. A little of his drink spilled over the edge of the glass.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, go to bed,” Jane snapped. “Don’t subject me to your goddamn attacks!”

He straightened up and tried to blink away the tears of pain that shimmered in his eyes.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

She turned away with a rustle on the chair, and she stared into the dark kitchen. There, too, she thought, was the result of this so glorious party: the uneaten sandwiches, the drinks all watery with melted ice cubes, the glasses and dishes broken, the crumpled napkins smudgy with lipstick wiped from many a guilty visage.

A hardly audible chuckle sounded in her throat, a brief light of amusement took away the haggard dullness in her eyes. It never failed to amuse, if only for seconds—this spectacle of passion unleashed, snuffing about like a freed puppy, seeking out the hydrants of excitement. These parties designed and executed for the sole purpose of escape.

“What’s funny?” he asked, half faithful in reaction to her smile, half afraid that she was laughing at him.

Her eyes turned to him slowly, the light gone, the flat dispassion back.

“You’re funny,” she said.

And how did you answer that? His throat moved. His face, for one unguarded moment, flinted and was the face of a man. But there
was no mind of a man behind the mask and the old will-less convolutions returned to his face.

“Why?” he asked. “Why am I funny?”

She just looked at him.

“Nothing,” she said. “Forget it. Ignore it. Cancel it.”

“No, I want to know.” He knew very well he was punishing himself now.

“Will you go to bed?” Jane said. “Go to bed before I insult you some more.”

“Seems to me you have always insulted me,” he said, surprised at his own mild courage.

She looked at him over the edge of her drink and he watched her thin throat move while she swallowed the drink. Those eyes, those cold blue eyes; detached, always inspecting.

“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” she slurred. “Go to bed, will you?”

“I—”

“For Christ’s sake, will you go to bed!”

There was almost an anguish in her voice; as if, in spite of her despising him, she wanted to reach out for comfort. He half started to his feet, his face lined with concern for her.

But when she saw him coming toward her, she almost recoiled into the cushion of the chair.

“
Don’t come near me
,” she said, her voice thick with loathing.

His brow furrowed with lack of understanding. He stood in the middle of the room looking at her with blank eyes.

Her voice was almost hysterical. “I swear to God I’ll jump off the balcony if you don’t get out of here.”

He stiffened momentarily.

“Now see here, Jane.”

“What are you,” she asked, “a whipping post? Don’t you ever know when to quit?”

“Jane, I…”

“Is it possible, is it at all possible that I can make you quit?” she said, her voice a throaty insult. “Is there anything in the world I can say to make you bristle? Is there
one
insult in the whole world that will make you fight?”

“Honey, why don’t you take a sedative and—”

“A sedative!”

A breathless gasp of laughter tore back her lips.

“Dear Christ, a sedative he wants me to take!” Her head shook quickly. “No, no, I’ll bet there isn’t. I’ll bet there isn’t a single insult in the world that would make you angry. I bet I could insult your whole family down to the last person and I could call you everything in the book and it wouldn’t make any difference at all.”

“Jane…”

“Oh—
Jesus
, will you shut up! You fool, you dolt, you ignoramus. You jerk, you—you
fat slob
!”

He recoiled under her words.

“There!” she snapped triumphantly. “Maybe I
can
get you to fight. You pig, you revolting mass of…”

The urge left as quickly as it had come. She sank back and the fire went out of her eyes. In an instant she had fallen into complete depression again. She reached out the glass to put it on the table beside the chair, but she didn’t make it and the glass went thumping to the floor. She sat there twisting on the chair.

Stan had put his drink down on the table by the couch. He was still shaking from her words, his body throbbing with the pain of them. Without a word he stumbled past her chair and into the darkened bedroom. He sank down on his bed and his head dropped forward until his chin rested on his chest. He sat looking into the living room as Jane moved into sight and lay down on the couch. She had the bottle of whiskey with her and she took a drink from it. She was going to get drunk, he knew. She was going to drive herself into a cloud of forgetfulness.

He fell back on the pillow and lay there in the silence, his eyes closed, listening to the sound of his own breathing, heavy and wheezing in the darkness. He fell into a troubled half-sleep.

He wasn’t sure whether it was a dream or not. But it seemed as if he heard the doorbell ringing. The buzzing sound seemed to penetrate the thick layers of darkness. He stirred slightly on the mattress, his mouth twitching a little.

Then the cry of fright jerked him up to a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring, his heart jolting against his chest wall.

“What in God’s—” he started to mutter, not even conscious of speaking.

Quickly, trembling, he dropped his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.

“I said lock the door!” he heard someone command in the front hall.

That voice. It drove like a lance into his mind and made him shudder.

Vince.

Quickly he moved into the living room, hearing Jane say something inaudible, then Vince again.

“I’ll shoot you if you don’t! You think I care if I shoot you?”

With a gasp, Stan backed into the bedroom. The phone, quickly, the phone! He backed across the dark room, eyes fastened on the living room. He bumped into Jane’s bed and fell onto it with a start. Hurriedly, he pushed up and moved for the phone on the bedside table. He jerked up the receiver and reached for the dial.

“Where’s Stan?” Vince asked, entering the living room.

Stan’s heart jolted and, with shaking fingers, he quickly put down the receiver. If Vince had a gun he mustn’t be found calling for help. He knew what Vince was like.
God in heaven
, he thought,
how did he get out?

Quickly he sank down on his bed and threw up his legs.
I’ll pretend that I’m asleep
, his mind planned.
Maybe Vince won’t do anything then. Maybe I’ll get a chance to call the police
.

“I told you he was asleep,” Jane said.

Stan’s legs twitched on the sheet. Maybe it was his imagination but she didn’t sound afraid. She had cried out, yes, but now there was almost that sound of disinterest in her voice again.

He kept his eyes tightly shut. There was a murmur in the living room, then Vince snarling.

“You fix it or I’ll
kill
you!”

“All right, all right,” she said quickly.

Stan twitched as the bedroom light was flicked on. He opened his eyes and started violently. It had been a long time since he’d seen Vince. He wasn’t prepared for the gaunt wildness of his face, the madness glittering in his dark eyes.

“Vince,” he said automatically. “What are you—”

“Get up,” said Vince. “My arm is hurt.”

Stan sat up and let his legs hang over the edge of the mattress. He saw that Vince kept his left arm stuck in the pocket of a black raincoat and he saw the strange, dark wetness of the sleeve.

Stan stood up quickly, looking at Vince, not knowing what to say or do. He saw Jane walk into the bathroom and heard her turn on the light. Then he heard her rummaging around in the medicine cabinet as his eyes moved back to Vince.

He twitched at Vince’s sudden words.

“Hurry up!” There was a break in Vince’s voice. He stood there weaving a little, his eyes glazed with pain and fright.

“Sit down, Vince,” Stan said nervously. “Why don’t—”

His voice broke off and he stood silent as Vince’s eyes jerked over and peered at him. He saw Vince’s teeth grit together.

“I can stand,” Vince said, tensely. “Don’t think I can’t, either.”

Stan swallowed. “Sure,” he said, “sure you can stand, Vince. If you want to.” He felt a tightening in his throat. He couldn’t be sure how to talk to Vince. He never
had
been.

They stood looking at each other and, abruptly, a nervous, rasping laugh hovered in Vince’s throat.

“Broke out,” he said. “Guess you never thought I’d—”

He stopped and pressed his white lips together, then drew in a shaking breath.

“Hurry up!” he yelled at Jane. “I swear to God I’ll shoot you if you don’t!”

“I can’t find any gauze,” Jane answered quickly.

“In back, in back,” Stan said.

He turned back to Vince again and stood there awkwardly looking at him. There was no sound but that of Jane in the bathroom. Stan’s hands twitched at his sides. He put them behind his body and they bumped into the bedside table.

At the feel of the smooth wood, he remembered the gun in the drawer. He forced his lips together suddenly because he felt them begin to tremble. He mustn’t act nervous. If he could only pull open the drawer and…

“H-how are you, Vince?” he asked in a hollow voice. Vince didn’t answer right away. His thin throat moved convulsively as he swallowed. The heavy pistol in his hand slowly began to lower.

“She’ll b-be right out,” Stan said hurriedly, “She’s getting it, isn’t she?” His throat moved quickly. Behind him his fingers trembled on the knob of the drawer. Could he grab the pistol in time, could he fire before Vince? Questions muddled through his mind and made his hands shake more. His fingers twitched away from the knob as Vince looked at him.