Pay the Piper (33 page)

That night, coming from the roadhouse, he made no protest about her driving. He was asleep before they left the parking lot. She hated his appearance and his failure to keep his promise to Boomer, in effect to the band, to do something about his drinking. She had stopped depending on soft promises to her. “I won't do it again.” Tina said, too, “I'm so tired of promises.” Tina, who grew up to be what she was destined to become.

Hal woke up in the garage. He was like a bug on its back trying to turn over, his legs flailing out the open door till he could figure out where to put them. She had never known such loathing and disgust. She whacked him across the face. Her bracelet caught him above one eye and opened a cut; blood began to spurt. She had locked the kitchen door, not knowing there was a key. But she had feared future retaliation. She feared ever being hit across the head again, as her father had hit her twice and as Hal had, once breaking her nose. There was a humiliation to it that sank deep; there was a sense of fury at not being able to do anything that moment. And what she had, by now, was a terrible fear about her brains ever again being rattled in the way they had been, about their never again being the same.

She had thought herself safe, but Hal came up the stairs. Rounding the bed, he had said, “Laurel, I'm going to drown you in the toilet. It's what you deserve.”

There was a long time she lay there in the moonlight before she dared to say, “Hal, you can't make this look like manslaughter.”

In a while, she whispered, “Not this time. You'll go to prison forever. Think how horrible it's already been for your children.”

She was there a long while, feeling the beating of her heart near his and wondering in the pale light what he was thinking, what he was looking at inside himself, or if he was even capable of thought then. Whatever possessed him went away. He suddenly sat back. With her neck aching, she had gotten up and turned on the light. She could not believe the amount of blood everywhere; even the walls and the rug had smears. “I'm not going to clean all this up,” she said. “You do it.”

Hal went away with his obedient air and came back with a pail of soapy water and a steel-bristled brush. He worked silently and well. She said once, “Don't soak the rug with water.”

That night she slept with scissors under her pillow because it was the only weapon handy. Hal had stayed in the kitchen awhile where the knives were. She fell into a half sleep, thinking how unbelievable it was to live as she did. She thought about the time when Hal blackened her eye in Soundport and she could not hide the truth from her mother. “Why,” her mother said, “why did you have to marry someone just like your father? It happens all the time.”

Laurel wended her way homeward with Bud. She had been gone so long, by now William would have come looking for her. It would not occur to Hal something could have happened. Bud stuck by her when she sat by the stream with her head to her knees, refusing to cry. Like many dogs, Bud understood sorrow and trouble in others. He sat quietly, not knowing what to do, only to wag his behind if she looked his direction, expressing sympathy in his muteness.

She felt heavily then the burden of Jubal's death, the way she bore a lot, thinking everything was her fault. In childhood she figured out the reason for her existence was to carry about pain in her heart. She always believed God had happiness ahead for her. She thought He paid her off with William, who gave her backbone and spine and taught her direction, to set her sights high. No divorce she knew about had been mourned as she and William and Rick had mourned. She and Rick never stopped discussing it, as apparently he and his dad did not either. Sex seemed in the long run so much the least part of marriage. They had to go through what they had gone through, she supposed. And rue it. Laurel jogged along home, reminding Bud about Jubal and Buff. “Remember?” Jubal went to prison Hal's last year. Rick assured her they could not have continued keeping him in the suburbs, and they recalled Jubal's swimming in the neighbors' pools and how he ate the homemade soup and then brought home the kettle in his mouth when a woman put it out on her doorstep to cool. He frequented local restaurants. How delighted Hal's sergeant had been to have Jubal, the only full-blooded bloodhound they had. The dog boys taught him “street experience”; she laughed. He populated the camp with puppies. In that way, he lived. Jubal became famous. “And,” Rick said, “he was a true working dog, doing what he was born for. Not just a suburban slob.” Not only was Jubal a natural at tracking prisoners, but so good he was borrowed by the state police to find a lost child, a hunter lost in the woods. But when Hal came back from house-hunting in Delton, he said Jubal had died of hookworm, and she felt responsible. “Prison was his finest hour,” Rick said.

She looked at him that day and said quietly, “So was it Hal's.”

When Laurel came in through the garage, Hal was ironing. “Didn't you miss me? Didn't you worry?”

He smiled slightly. “I was wondering where you were.” He looked strange. On Tuesdays he was always pale and puffy about the eyes after his late Monday night in the bar. This afternoon, as always, he would nap. His hands would be crossed on his stomach, his Wallabees turned upward; he never removed his shoes.

“I have a meeting of Literacy Volunteers this morning. You can practice your pipes.” He went on ironing, his head bent.

Laurel sat down drinking coffee and attempted to work the rest of the crossword puzzle. Hal came inside with his arms loaded with ironing. He stopped by the kitchen table with a pained expression. “Laurel, we need to talk about our marriage.”

“What is wrong with this marriage is you are a drunk. You do absolutely nothing. And I have no respect for you in any area of your life.”

“Oh,” he said, passing on. “No respect for me.”

What the hell respect did he think anybody had for him? she wondered.

She was surprised by her outburst and somewhat frightened. What could it mean? She did not want to take back her words but ought to soothe them over. Or else they would remain between them forever like a deadly little silence. She remembered this same kind of thing happening with William. Then she had not feared his leaving her, as she'd had the leverage of Hal. Now she had nothing. And she was terrified of abandonment.

Hal was sunbathing in the backyard when she left. She wanted to speak to him but did not know how to break down her barricade of silence. However she did not plan to mollify him too much because the words she spoke were the truth.

After her meeting, she did not want to return home to either Hal or the house's quiet while he slept. She stayed downtown. She passed the drugstore where once she had phoned William, and had lunch in the luncheonette where she and Rick almost had a Coke; the shoe store was replaced by a fancy foods shop for pets, Lick Your Chops. She groaned. In Gristede's she bought lamb chops and steak as treats with the twenty bucks she stole from Hal.

Ahead was her summer's stint at cooking when Tina came for her now laborious summer visit, bringing a friend; another interruption to her writing. Tina stayed longer each year. Soundport was more exciting than the inland small town in Florida where she lived. Laurel went on thinking Sallie got the short end of the stick, and scarcely any alimony. Laurel had reasoned out long ago that lives that came into contact with Hal were harmed, even Jubal and Buff. Something Fate had not called for happened. Tina dated Rick's friends or met boys on her own. Hal snored away the night, but she heard the long silences in Tina's room and cars going away at dawn. She faced wine bottles under the bed, layers of wet towels on the hardwood floors, and dirty dishes stacked around her room. For years she had tried to get Tina to help out, feeling the girl needed to be taught direction. Tina objected. When Laurel asked her to cook frozen peas for dinner, Tina said, “I can't cook.” “You can read directions on the box,” she told her, but Hal ended up cooking while Tina watched TV, her summer's activity. Then Tina phoned Sallie to say she didn't feel welcome. Laurel wanted her to work. Sallie phoned Hal. A lot going on behind my back, Laurel observed. “Laurel, I'm ready to get rid of you,” Hal had muttered, one of his nasty mutterings. It bothered her. At least Tina had the decency to look embarrassed, the little bitch. Daddy's girl. Hal plucked at a bow in her hair when he passed by to make sure Tina was looking at him. Finally the moment came when she said, “Tina, please help me with your father's drinking.”

“Oh, no, Laurel. I want money for college.”

So much for the promise I've kept you all these years, she had thought.

Laurel continued down the main street of town, thinking of the behavior of Hal's people, their complete refusal to offer any criticism to help him. Shortly after he got out of prison she stopped expecting to hear from them, stopped even wanting to hear the telephone ring with best wishes, a kind word, an invitation. While he was in prison, they behaved properly; they sent him things. But none of them would have their social positions jeopardized afterward by inviting him to their houses. Her mother was right when she said, “You did them a great favor. If it weren't for you, he wouldn't be in Connecticut.” She had tried to be a good stepmother, she had tried to be a good wife. For God's sake, she gave a party for his friends in the Scarabees' band and their spouses. A dinner with card tables so everyone had a place to sit down and eat. She thought about that night and the pitiful creature, Doreen.

“Dough-reen,” Hal called her in his Southern accent. What was wrong with the woman? She had long wondered that. Doreen was fat and hefty and wore a stationary, incurious smile on a big white face. The night of her party she figured out one thing wrong with the woman. She has a crush on my husband, Laurel observed to herself. It was such a pitiful situation, she wanted to tell Hal. But men were so susceptible to flattery, she thought it best not to bring it to his attention.

But imagine, Laurel said to herself, how she walked into my house. When she opened the door, Doreen had barged in with her gaze averted. She didn't know enough to speak to the hostess? she had wondered, even if she was a manicurist and obviously from the wrong side of the tracks. But Doreen knew little. She stayed in a corner of the dining room hulked up while others served themselves, uncertain about her behavior. She looked about all night with that smile, never speaking to anyone, though now she was one of four women who played in the band. Once passing between rooms, they met in a doorway. Doreen lifted up her chin and stared off. Laurel felt actually a little fear, Doreen was so much like a big-bosomed hen, and masculine in an aggressive, silent manner. She had thought again, The pitiful creature has a crush on my husband. But what odd behavior. She did not want to be uncomplimentary because she had looked down on his activities enough, so she did not remark on Doreen to Hal. He had started her on the bagpipes. Doreen came to the rented stone house one evening, six years ago now, with an old set of pipes she found in her attic. Hal tried them out, he made suggestions. That night Doreen never said a word either. She sat listening to Hal with her skirt hiked up, exposing huge white knees and thighs. Laurel showed her out in her silence. She watched Doreen with her big behind walk off into the dark, toward a rattletrap car, and could not imagine a life more terrible than to be ugly, alone, and have no money. That first night, she had turned back and said, “She's certainly pitiful,” and Hal agreed. “Yes, she is.”

Now Laurel thought about Hal's sweet side, how he dropped by her mother's some Monday evenings to break up her mother's loneliness, and how he helped Doreen with bag-piping. She had come a long way in six years. Whenever she went to a Scarabees function with Hal, she found him in endless conversation with Doreen, a monologue. Doreen stood above him with her queer, remote smile, as if not quite taking everything in. Laurel had never seen Hal “run his mouth” so much, an action of which he'd have accused her. She saw Hal as happy he had someone to impress, at last.

She decided to go home from downtown because she could not think of anything else to do. In the house, she could feel Hal upstairs sleeping. The telephone rang and she knew it was not for her; she had hardly anyone to call her; calls were always about bagpiping and Scarabees activities. A woman said, “Mrs. MacDonald? This is lawyer James Moody's secretary. Would you please give me the date of your marriage to Mr. MacDonald.”

“Just a minute.” Laurel put down the receiver and went upstairs in an obedient manner to rummage in a drawer till she found the Mississippi license in its blue folder. Then she went downstairs and told the woman the date, thinking as soon as she hung up, Why the hell didn't I say I didn't know, and let Hal find out?

She went back upstairs to the room where he was asleep, with a sense of unreality and a pounding heart. She told herself, Not like this. No human being does this. How could he, after all I have done? She sat down in his bedroom on a settee from Matagorda, her hands folded in her lap, her ankles crossed, like a proper scared girl at dancing school hoping for a partner.

“Hal, are we getting a divorce?”

He opened his eyes without looking at her and shrugged his shoulders.

“You can't just—get a divorce.”

“There's no-fault divorce in Connecticut.”

She saw there was nothing to be said. His mind was made up. She had no choice. Everything was to be stripped right away. Who had brought about no-fault divorce, the Women's Movement? Signs had pointed toward his leaving, but she had refused to believe them. She had foolishly believed in idealism, in justice, and in loyalty.

She could not imagine that Hal had scurried around behind her back and filed for a divorce without her even knowing it. He would have to have been thinking about one for a long time, secretly planning and secretly plotting. She had lived with such a person for ten years? Laurel, when she went into her bedroom, saw ahead inevitable years of middle-aged loneliness, of bravery in the face of despair. She turned around and marched right back to his doorway.