Ordinary People (19 page)

Marvelous accident. Did he discover her in her blue skirt that day last September, in Lazenby’s car? If so, Berger is right: the body doesn’t lie. He says against her cheek, “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispers. Her breath is warm against his ear. “Two phone calls in one week. You are swifter than I thought.”

She looks up from the checks she is writing at her desk in the bedroom. “When would we go?”

“March thirteenth. It’s a Friday. Tournament starts on Saturday, runs until Monday, the sixteenth.”

“All right.” She puts down her pen. “Would we stay with Ward and Audrey?”

“If you like.”

“I’ll write to them.”

“Good.”

Not a trip to Europe, but he can do this for her; take her to visit her brother. Ward Butler is big and loud, nothing like his sister, in looks or temperament. Married a woman just like himself. Easy people to like, and to be with. And she is as close to Ward as she is to anybody.
As close as she is to me?

He wanders from the bedroom to the family room downstairs; makes himself a drink at the bar. A quiet Saturday night, for a change. Conrad is out for the evening. He didn’t say where, only that he wouldn’t be late. He flips idly through a stack of record albums on the stereo; pulls out “A London Symphony,” by Vaughan Williams. The only symphony with which he has ever become familiar. He remembers the music lit course Beth was taking when they met; all those inane lyrics they put to the main themes to help her study for the exams.

The power of suggestion. That particular symphony does make him think of Europe, although not London specifically, just all the places they have been. Spain. Toledo, with its streets narrower than any alleys he has seen, and those outdoor stalls with seafood, fresh fruits, hand-knitted shawls, hand-tooled leather belts—those delicate carvings on the handles of swords and knives —what was it called? God, his memory failing again. Senility setting in.

The smell of boxwood. Granada. In the monastery where they stayed, Parador de San Francisco, the gardens were laid out so neatly, with fountains and stone benches, and stones inlaid on the walkways. So beautiful and unreal. And yet, with the unreality, and, considering the timing of it—Con still in the hospital, Jordan dead less than a year—they had been happy there. Away from home, away from all of it, everything seemed orderly and safe.

Safety and order. Definitely the priorities of his life. He is not a man inclined toward risk. There. A definition at last.
I’m a man who believes in safety.

Christ, is that all? Is that why decisions are so difficult? No. He would have classed Arnold Bacon as a man who believed in order and in safety. Yet Arnold had no trouble with decisions. Arnold had written him off, without hesitation, when he had married Beth. He had been re-evaluated; found wanting. The subsidy was withdrawn, the offer of a future partnership in Arnold’s firm disappearing with it. It seemed at the time a terrible misunderstanding. No way to put it right. Not with telephone calls or letters after the fact. And it was not the withdrawal of the subsidy; that meant nothing. The withdrawal of friendship. That was what had crushed him. After five years of looking up to someone, of thinking of him as a father.

“You had a goal, once,” Arnold told him over the telephone. “You were going to be the best tax attorney in the state, remember?”

“Sure. And once I wanted to be a fireman. Then I met you.” He had been angry, then, but he hadn’t really meant that his goals had changed. And, in vain, he argued that a man can have more than one goal at a time; that he had not abandoned one for the other. He just no longer wanted to think of himself as the kid from the Evangelical Home. He wanted a family, a wife. People to share his goals with him.

“Then you’ve made a bad choice,” Bacon observed. “She is not a sharer, Calvin. It’s you who will end up doing all the sharing.”

Bitterness talking, he had understood that. There had been, on contact, instant hatred between Arnold and Beth. She had referred to him after the very first meeting as Arnold Fagin; had never missed an opportunity to point out the ways that Arnold worked to control him. To own him, she said. Between those two whom he loved, he had tried to wedge his own wants, his own needs, sitting nervously on the fence. It hadn’t worked.

His eyes blur suddenly, and he blinks back tears, furious at himself. Since that visit with Berger, all manner of internal wheels have been set in motion, heaving up thoughts he has not encountered in years. Old stuff. Too late to do anything about it, and what could he have done? Gone to his funeral? What for? To pay his respects to a man who would have nothing to do with him for the last fifteen or so years of his life? No. All over. It had not been him, anyway, who made the decision. It had been Arnold. So maybe Beth had been right. Maybe people did use other people according to their own needs. It had not felt like ownership to him, but, afterward, what else could he call it? He had not lived up to his end of the bargain. Therefore, Arnold had cut him loose, gotten rid of him.

People use people according to their own needs. Or don’t use them. When a primary need is one of safety. Is that why he has never gotten involved? With a secretary, a girl in a bar, a client, a friend’s wife? Is it because he loves her, or because he is afraid? Affairs. They are common knowledge, discussed, just as they say, in the locker rooms of the clubs he has belonged to. Women everywhere. Hundreds of opportunities. Thousands of attractions. Then why not him?

The closest he has ever come was nine—no, ten—years ago. A woman lawyer he knew. Molly Davis. Her client and his were considering a private merger; they had worked together on it for several weeks, and he felt the vibrations; they could have worked out a private merger of their own—so why didn’t they? What had happened? So long ago, it is hard to remember. It seems that he had quietly and simply, one day, turned it off. Before it had gotten started. Priorities again. Safety and order. Infidelity is a dangerous business. People get hurt. And she does not forgive. She never forgave Arnold for—for what? For simply being Arnold.

No. Too easy, pushing it off on her.
Face it, you are not a hungry man; sexually or otherwise. You were content. You never looked.

But, in any case, she would not have forgiven him. They had discussed it once, after Ray and Nancy.

“If I were her,” she had said, “I would never come back. Not for a house in Glencoe, not for the children, not for anything. It is too humiliating.”

“Why? She loves him. What does it matter?”

“It matters that we know about it,” she said.

“Suppose nobody knew about it? Then would it be humiliating?”

“I would know,” she said, “and you would know. That’s enough.”

A thrill of fear had touched him. Is it that some people are not given a capacity for forgiveness, just as some are cheated out of beauty by a pointed nose, or not allowed the adequate amount of brain matter?
it is not in her nature to forgive.

No. That is absurd. Again, a reducing of the complicated dimensions of life to a formula that is more simple than sensible. It comes from too much thinking.

He rises in disgust, setting his glass down on the bar. Too much thinking merely causes him to feel vaguely that he is on the point of learning something, only to have the circuits blocked; the answers inaccessible.

On impulse, he attends a swim meet after school; sits alone, behind a group of freshmen. Short boys; tall girls. The air is moist and hot; coats and sweaters are piled everywhere. The girls turn around to rearrange clothes, to tuck scarves and gloves into coat sleeves, to stare. The boys watch the meet. They voice loud, unflattering opinions of the home team.

“Jesus, they stink!” one kid says in disgust, and Conrad feels oddly hurt by the remark. Defensive. But it is true. Their record: one win, four losses. They should be better. Lazenby, a dependable breast-stroker; plenty of talent in the free style; Truan the best backstroker around, maybe even as good as Buck. Still, they don’t have it. For the first time, he feels a twinge of regret. Maybe he could have helped. Watching Salan as he shouts encouragement to Bill Danoff, his best in the two-hundred-meter free style, he wonders about Lazenby’s remark that day in the hall. No. Salan is a Man of his Word, actions have consequences,
Lord Jim
and all that.

Afterward he hangs around. The crowd thins out, and he heads for the lower doors, passing the stairway that leads to the locker rooms. Laughter surges upward from the stair well. He recognizes the voices.

“Come on, guys, move it, my goddamn ass is melting!” Lazenby pleads.

“Your goddamn ass could use it!” Genthe says.

He hesitates; then he moves on, toward the door, his books slung under his wrist, against his hip.

It is dark, and he has to pick his way around pools of half-melted snow in the parking lot. Warmed briefly this afternoon by the sun, the puddles are bubbled over now; thin sheets of ice that will not hold weight. Behind him the doors burst open. Shouts of laughter push outward.

“... glad you can laugh about it, Genthe, it sure as hell wasn’t funny—”

“Ah, come on, we weren’t that bad—”

“—face it, we got waxed! We stunk!”

“—Truan, no kidding, I don’t know how you can listen to that lecture one more time about Buck Jarrett, the all-time great swimmer of the world. Jesus, he bores the crap outa me when he does that—”

“—you think he’s ever gonna quit kissing the guy’s picture—”

An abrupt silence. It stabs deeper than the words.

Someone says, “Shut the fuck up, will you?”

He continues across the parking lot, reaching into his back pocket for his keys, the blood thick behind his eyes, his throat tight. The lot is nearly empty of cars. It is slippery and wet. He misses one puddle, steps into another, and icy water oozes through the seam of his boot.

“Hey, Con.” Lazenby comes up behind him.

He turns, gives him a blank smile.

“Could’ve used you today, buddy,” Truan says.

“I don’t think so.”

Lazenby laughs. “He’s right. Nobody could help us today.”

“How’s it goin’, Jarrett?” Stillman materializes out of the darkness, checking out the LeMans, swift and professional. “Your old man’s so loaded, how come he didn’t get you a friggin’ Eldorado?”

“I tried not to let it ruin my Christmas.” His voice sounds wooden and expressionless in his ears. He is surprised when they laugh.

Truan says, “I heard you were going out with Pratt.”

“No kidding,” Lazenby says. “Since when?”

He cannot answer. The blood is still pounding. His throat is scratchy, hot.

Stillman flashes The Grin. “How ya doing? You in her pants yet?”

“Do me a favor,” he says. “Try not to be such a prick. I know it won’t be easy for you.”

They stop walking and eye each other warily. Truan backs up, getting himself out of the way.

“Hey, you guys—” Lazenby says.

“Man,” Stillman says, “you’re the prick. Guys like you who walk around acting like you’re King Shit, you give me a goddamn pain in the ass—”

Something explodes inside his head, the sound shattering the parking lot, the red brick wall of building behind him, the white doors, gray cement—all dissolving into broken bits of color, heading swiftly toward him as he slams his fist, hard, against that face—a sweet rush of mindless ecstasy washes out everything in perfect release and makes him whole again. The rough feel of cloth tearing in his hands as he holds on, shoving, pushing, and they go down together on the gravel. Stillman’s arm is around his neck, his hand digging, punching at his back—“—goddamn you, Jarrett!”

He hits him again. Everything is bathed in yellow light now, faded, like an overexposed photograph, and again he hits him, as, miles away, someone calls his name: “—Con—Con—Connie—!” and he is grabbed suddenly from behind, swung roughly around. He hits out again.

“Cut it out!” someone says, “Cut it out!”

A second explosion in the pit of his stomach. He doubles over.

A solid wall of pain is packed into his lungs. There is no room for air. The passage is blocked, and he has lost the secret, the rhythm of breathing. He gasps, and the wall dissolves. Behind it, there is only a hole, filled with pain.

“You okay?”

It is Lazerlby holding him up. He straightens slowly, looks at Stillman, lying on the ground, legs sprawled, an elbow crooked high over his face. Something white in his fist. A handkerchief. He is rocking slowly. Truan and Genthe bend over him, helping him up. He takes the handkerchief down; looks at it, moaning. Blood pours from his nose. The yellow light is receding; the photograph coming into focus. Rough gravel and slush underneath their feet. Truan, Genthe, Lazenby, Van Buren, two other guys he does not know who came to watch. There is sound, but it’s garbled and he cannot understand it. He doesn’t want to.

He walks away, brushing something wet from the front of his jacket. His knees are trembling; his body feels loose and watery. He gets into his car and sits, holding on to the steering wheel. His hands hurt. The knuckles are scraped raw, and he flexes them on the wheel. He reaches behind him, feeling for his keys in his back pocket. They are not there. They are somewhere out in the parking lot. Along with his books. He rests his forehead on the wheel, fatigue, and another feeling that he cannot identify, moving in, trying to overcome him.

The door on his right opens. His books are tossed in on the seat. Lazenby leans across and hands him his car keys.

“Thanks.” He takes them without looking. The door stays open a minute, then Lazenby gets in, slams it closed behind him.

“I want to talk.”

The darkness outside is dense; illuminated at intervals by a bluish glow from the parking lot lights. He stares at the dashboard, holding the keys lightly in his hand.