The Folks at Fifty-Eight (23 page)

If she’d hoped to upset him, it hadn’t worked. He sat down opposite her at the table.

“I wouldn’t mind. If there was another man, I’d probably understand it. Given that you haven’t spread your legs for me in almost twenty years, I’d probably applaud it.” As he studied her indifference, the bitterness and frustration boiled over. “You see, I could cope with another man, a rival. I could handle a rival. Someone to point at and say, what’s he got that I haven’t?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, play another record.”

He continued to rant.

“I could even cope with more than one. What the hell. If I came home and found an entire regiment of fucking marines, progressively book-ending you on the kitchen floor, I’d cope.

“I wouldn’t like it. I’d be jealous as hell. But at least it would show me that you still had physical needs, still had sexual ambition, could still function as a woman. If I knew that I could try to cope, somehow try to compete. But this. . . I can’t compete with this. I can’t cope with this.”

She suddenly started shouting.

“You’ve got a damn nerve. How about me having to cope, when I stand next to those bitches and listen to them whispering about your disgusting perversions? How about me having to cope when I catch them watching me, and talking about you, and see them sniggering behind their hands? How about me having to cope when that Radcliff-Hammond whore announces to the world that she had you in a moment of weakness? Oh, and by the way, it’s now official. You’re the lousiest fuck in Washington. Emma Radcliff-Hammond told everybody last night, and if anybody should know it’s that little slut.

“Do you ever think about me when you’re out there, Alan, screwing your whores? Do you ever consider me at all? Do you ever wonder how I manage to cope?”

He looked blankly back at her for a suspended moment of disbelief.

“She said what? Where was this? When was this?”

She spat back at him.

“It was at the Travers’s dinner party last night. She was talking about you and your old boozing and whoring buddy. She told everyone that Morton Simmonds has good technique. She said you were the lousiest fuck ever, her precise words. That was just before she told me she was going to take my son’s virginity. Just before she took him away to that overpriced brothel she calls an apartment. Just before she broke my fucking heart.”

Alan Carlisle sat open-mouthed as his furious wife poured on the scorn.

“I know you’ve had hundreds of women, Alan, and I couldn’t care less. And I knew you’d had her. It didn’t bother me. You see, I don’t want you. I can’t stand the thought of you ever touching me again. It makes me physically sick to think of it. But I do care about Mathew. I do care that one of your filthy whores is out there laughing at me, while she violates and spoils the only decent thing that ever came out of our godforsaken marriage.”

“For Christ’s sake, stop it!”

Mathew had arrived unnoticed.

“Mathew, I didn’t hear the taxi. Darling, I didn’t mean for you to hear. . .”

She stood up and rushed to surround him. He pushed her away and shook his head.

“Mum, you’re drunk again, and Emma’s not a whore. Don’t you dare say that about her. She’s beautiful, and she’s fun. She loves life, and she loves living. You shouldn’t be calling her names. You should be asking yourself why you’re not more like her.”

He studied his mother’s drunken condition and half-naked body with a look of disgust.

“Mum, I don’t want to see you looking like this, dressing like this. Not for me, it’s not right. You’re my mother, for God’s sake. Don’t you understand what that means? You’re my mother and I love you, but I don’t want this. It’s just not right.”

He looked down at the floor, as though ashamed to look at either of his warring parents.

“And I don’t want you touching me any more. Not that way. It’s disgusting, and it’s wrong. I’m not a little boy, I’m a man. And I’m sorry, but if anybody looks like a whore, it’s you.”

Angela Carlisle slapped him hard across the face, and then burst into tears. She babbled an apology and clutched at his arm, and then watched with a look of panic and despair on her face as he took the stairs two at a time. He reached his room and wrenched open the door, and then slammed it shut behind him.

She called after him, declaring her love, begging forgiveness. When he didn’t answer, she sank to her knees in the centre of the hallway.

“Mathew, I love you. I didn’t ever want you to. . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean. . . I wouldn’t. . . I just wanted everything to be like it used to be. Darling, you must believe me.”

Alan Carlisle had watched the drama unfold in numb disbelief. But now, as his wife knelt on the hall floor, sobbing hysterically and denying the truth of a sickening ambition that was all so shockingly obvious, he felt ashamed. Ashamed of so seldom being there for them. Ashamed of long suspecting but never voicing his suspicions. Ashamed for not asking any of those nagging questions, for fear of hearing the answers. Ashamed for not hammering that final nail into the coffin of a lifeless marriage.

He no longer remembered the girl who had stolen his heart and inflamed his passion all those years ago. He no longer recalled the voluptuous siren he’d found waiting at the door only moments before. All he could see was the face of a lonely and desperate woman in the throes of moral torment, a pitiful, shameful, and deluded woman, refusing to accept the shattering reality of her own disgusting desires.

Suddenly repulsed, he stepped around the ungainly sprawl of naked limbs and crude exposure, walked into the lounge and poured himself a glass of bourbon. He threw it to the back of his throat, then poured another, and another after that. Then he studied the empty glass, listened to her sobs of anguish, and knew what he must do.

He returned to the hallway, scooped her into his arms, and carried her up the stairs to her bedroom. As he laid her on the bed she stopped sobbing and looked up at him.

“Please don’t. I’m too tired and too drunk to fight you, but please don’t.”

Alan Carlisle smiled grimly down at her.

“After all those insults, and all those spiteful refusals I’ve had to suffer over all those years of misery, what makes you think I could possibly want that ever again?”

He walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower, then returned and lifted her from the bed. He ignored the kicks and struggles as he carried her to the bathroom and stepped into the shower, holding her prisoner beneath the icy cascade until the voice of drunken outrage stilled. He ignored her sobs of anguish and the stream of vitriol that spewed from her lips, waiting until her body hung limp in his arms and her rage subsided into despair.

“Now stand up, and sober up, and wash that muck off your face. Then get some sleep.”

She stood under the shower in chastened obedience, her hair hanging in lank saturation, her eyes downcast, her mascara running. For a moment of masculine weakness he studied the sodden lingerie that clung to her flesh, in betrayal of every magnificent contour.

Then he reached out.

“No!”

He snapped each flimsy strap in turn and then ripped and tore the chemise from her body. Angela Carlisle staggered and almost fell. She gave a shriek and frantically scrambled to cover her nakedness. He snarled his disgust.

“Don’t kid yourself. You’re not that enticing, and I’m not that desperate.”

Alan Carlisle stepped away from the shower and held up the torn chemise, then spoke in words of barely-controlled fury.

“Now this goes into the trash, where it belongs, and all the sordid memories go with it, you understand? Later I’ll talk, and you’ll listen. I’ll tell you what to do, and you’ll do it. Then we’ll either go our separate ways or start over, but this disgusting sickness stops, right here and right now. . . Now get some sleep.”

For the first time in a long while, Alan Carlisle felt a genuine sense of pride as he strode away from her puzzled stare and mute obedience. He reached his own room and closed the door, then dried his hair and changed out of his ruined suit and waterlogged clothing. After that, he walked across the landing to Mathew’s room and tapped on the door.

“May I come in?”

“It’s your house.”

He found his son packing a suitcase.

“You’re leaving?”

Mathew Carlisle stared sullenly at the carpet.

“I’d have thought that was obvious. Don’t try talking me out of it.”

“I didn’t intend to.”

Carlisle sat on the edge of the bed and tried to repair the damage.

“Matt, your mother didn’t mean that. She didn’t realize what you were thinking. She didn’t understand that it made you feel uncomfortable.”

Mathew Carlisle scoffed.

“Dad, don’t be naïve. She was always touching me. She used to come into the bathroom, when I was in the bath. She used to touch me while I lay there. She even got into bed with me.”

Alan Carlisle smiled gently and offered a possibility he didn’t believe.

“Matt, it was just maternal instinct. Sometimes mothers don’t know when to stop being mothers. Sometimes they feel so much love for their children, they don’t realize they’re growing up. Sometimes they don’t realize the children they love so much aren’t children any more. It’s only natural.”

“Dad. . . She used to make me come.”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean to. It must have been an accident.”

“Dad, it wasn’t just the once. She did it all the time. She. . .”

“She must have said something. She can’t have meant it. Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you stop her?”

Mathew Carlisle hung his head. He was obviously suffering. His words confirmed it.

“It was on that morning you telephoned from Frankfurt. After we talked, I decided to take a bath. She came home. She said she’d been staying with friends. She knelt down by the bath and started washing me. She used to do that. I didn’t think anything of it, but then she touched me.”

“What, you mean, she touched your genitals?”

Carlisle couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Mathew nodded.

“Yeah, I think it was an accident, but I started to get. . . well, you know.”

“You started to get an erection?”

“Yeah, I tried to cover up, but she pushed my hands away and told me not to be silly. She said I always got like that in the bath; you know, when I was young. She said it was natural.”

Carlisle nodded. Years ago, he could remember Angela telling him about it. At the time they’d laughed together and he’d felt quite proud of his son. Mathew went on with his confession. He seemed relieved to have someone to talk to.

“For a while she just soaped and sponged, but then she dropped the soap and took hold of me; you know, properly got hold of me. . . I told her not to. I told her to stop, but she didn’t. She started massaging me, you know, up and down. I couldn’t help it. I just came.”

Mathew looked down at the floor. Carlisle felt numb, but he could sense there was more, and he had to know it all.

“Go on.”

“I felt dreadful, but she looked so happy. She asked if it felt good. When I didn’t answer, she said she’d enjoyed doing it. She said it made her feel good to make me feel good. She said I shouldn’t worry about girls. She said they were cruel and they’d hurt me. She said she’d look after me, until I was older and more experienced. . . I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t know what to say.

“After that she never said anything much, and I never knew what to say. She used to stop me and say I looked tense, or upset, and then she’d just do it to me.”

“But you must have said something, or tried to stop her. Mathew, you’re a young man. You’re so much stronger than her. You could have stopped her.”

Alan Carlisle was becoming angry, but then he saw the shame and hurt in his son’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, go on. I didn’t mean to get angry.”

Mathew nodded and continued.

“I tried staying up here until she’d gone out, but a few days ago she came into the bedroom. I was still in bed. She started talking about nothing in particular, but all the time I knew what she was thinking. All the time I knew what she wanted.

“She said I looked really tense. Then she took off her dress. I said I was fine, but she took no notice. She got into bed. She said she wanted to teach me about girls. She said she’d show me what they liked. I said I already knew. She said I only thought I knew.

“She put her legs around me and started pushing against me, and saying things like how sexy I was, and how hard I was, and how I was making her excited. Then she told me to take off her panties. She said it was time I learned about women.”

Carlisle had tried not to show his disbelief and anger, but the emotion suddenly overwhelmed him. “Mathew, I can’t believe you. . . you didn’t have sex with your mother?” He watched Mathew shake his head and felt the resulting relief flood through him. “Oh, thank God.”

Mathew spoke in earnest. He looked distraught.

“I nearly did. She wanted me to. She said it to me. She said, ‘Fuck me’. She said it out loud. She was tugging at me, and pushing up against me. Then she pulled me on top of her. She wrapped her legs around. She had hold of me. She was pulling me closer, and I nearly did.”

“But you stopped?”

“Yes. Something made me stop. I pushed her away. I told her I couldn’t.”

“What did she say?”

“At first she didn’t say anything. She had her eyes closed, and she was breathing heavily, but then she sort of groaned and asked me why.

“I said it wasn’t right. She didn’t say anything for a while. Then she told me not to worry about it, and went back to her room.

“For a few days after that I stayed with friends. I knew, if I didn’t get away. . . Well, I wasn’t sure I could stop her again. I was going back to Princeton, but I knew she’d find an excuse to visit. I decided to get as far away as possible. That was when I decided on Europe.”

Alan Carlisle had listened in horror. He began defending the indefensible.

“Look, Mathew, I know your mother was wrong, and so does she now. I’m sure she didn’t realize she was taking it too far. She just didn’t realize. Not until it was too late.”