The Husband (26 page)

“Oh, no, hardly ever. I find living models distracting. Besides, few would come here, and I like working in isolation, even from my subjects. These people, their photographs, are everywhere, and what I do—I have a darkroom in the main house—is make a composite, or rather a series of composites”—he showed several—“giving me the perspectives I need. I’ve never had complaints from purchasers, subjects, museums. Actually, the greatest market, from a dollar viewpoint, that is, is the reproductions. I get a royalty, just as an author would from a book—a book is a reproduction, is it not?—and people seem to want the likenesses of famous people around them. A photograph is too much—for an adult—but a sculpture, ah, that is art and the person, too. How is it in advertising?” he asked. “Do you find the work creative?”

“It’s a reasonably unpleasant way of making a large living, I suppose,” said Peter.

Fernando laughed.

“Surely you would not occupy your life in something unpleasant?”

“Well, no more unpleasant than a teacher supervising undisciplined children resentful of being in school, or writing for a magazine which finds its way into the trash can each subsequent month, or working in a foundation that gives away its money without perceptible effect.”

Fernando laughed again.

“Actually,” continued Peter, “the trick in advertising is to get enough power, to be enough use to someone, your client or your company, to have your own way about some things. I try to confine the ads I write to products about which I can tell the approximate truth. What I mean is—and this is hard for someone outside the field to understand—what I do is to describe the benefits or advantages of a product that really has some benefits and advantages. Some of our art directors—this will interest you—are actually quite talented painters, quite not being enough for a career in art. And so they use their skills, sometimes, I think, to the client’s disadvantage. That is, they may design an ad that calls attention to its artfulness, attention that should be focused on, forgive me, the message.”

“You are very frank,” Fernando said, saluting.

“Frankness deserves frankness,” said Peter, returning the salute.

They went back to the women.

“I have never sculpted an advertising man,” said Fernando in the passageway.

“It is an anonymous profession,” said Peter. “No one the public would know about.”

“Ogilvy?” asked Fernando.

“What museum—or person—would want a statue of Ogilvy?”

They were laughing as they entered the living room, where the women were having a high time of it.

“We’ve been wallowing in gossip,” said Elizabeth, pecking Peter on the cheek.

Peter noticed copies of
Partisan Review
and
Commentary
on the coffee table. “Are you going to do Podhoretz?” he asked Fernando.

“When he makes enough money to buy the original,” said Fernando.

Elizabeth joined their laughter, though Barbara remained conspicuously silent. Perhaps she didn’t know who Podhoretz was…. That phone call from Howard Johnson’s—why had it made Elizabeth apprehensive?

Fernando served the largest drinks he had ever seen anywhere, twelve-ounce tumblers filled to the brim with ice and Scotch.

“Salud!” he commanded.

They clinked glasses several times before all four of them managed to touch glasses at the same time.

Fernando unzipped a guitar cover, produced a magnificent instrument, and proceeded to sing several Spanish songs with a fair voice and remarkable verve. Elizabeth listened with fascination. Peter found it hard to keep his eyes away from Barbara. She seemed to be—he didn’t know why he thought so, but he was certain—counting the minutes. Why? Were they unwelcome? Did she want them to leave? They had planned to stay the night.

“You are staying the night?” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth assured her.

Perhaps it was the music, or the weariness of travel, but Peter found the drink going fast and its effect taking hold even faster. He wanted to caution Elizabeth, who was drinking right along with them all.

“A small one,” he said when Fernando offered a refill. The small ones turned out to be half-high in the glass, six ounces of ice and liquor. Peter took one sip and put the glass an arm’s length away on the table beside the rocking chair so that he would not be picking up the glass unconsciously.

After a time, Elizabeth got to her feet a bit woozily. “Wow,” she said, “that was a drink. I think I’ll go lie down a bit. May I? Then I’ll put on some slacks and a sweater and settle down for the evening.”

“Sure,” said Fernando. “I’ll show you the guest room. Your bags are up there.”

Which left Barbara and Peter alone for the first time. She brightened considerably.

“Elizabeth has told me a great deal about you,” she said. “Of course, she had written before, but very discreetly. I’m so glad for her. She’s the last unmarried in our class. Can you believe I was a virgin when I married?”

The assertion startled Peter.

“I’ve reached the point in life,” he said casually, “where I can believe anything.”

“It’s very difficult for a girl with a great deal of money,” she said. “When a boy makes a pass at you, you never know if it’s you or the money. I thought I was frigid.”

Peter looked at her face closely.

“Fernando changed all that,” she said as he descended the stairs.

“Changed what?” he said, ready to refill the glasses again.

“Oh, never mind,” she said, getting to her feet. “Peter, how about me showing you the grounds before it’s completely dark? Out back there’s a magnificent view if you go a hundred feet farther up. I wish we’d built the house higher.”

“Perhaps,” said Peter, looking at Fernando. “Actually,” he said, putting his hand over his glass at the proffered bottle, “I’m as high as I ought to be.”

“Go ahead, go ahead,” volunteered Fernando. “I’ve got a drink to go, and I can fix the salad in the meantime.”

There was a high color in Barbara’s face. “Fernando fixed the chili. He’s really the brilliant cook in the family.”

Peter labored up the trail after Barbara. She waited for him at the top.

“Look there,” she said. The view was indeed breathtaking.

When he turned, her face was closer to his than he had expected. Was it the drink?

“Do you enjoy sex?” she asked.

Surprise caught any answer he might have given.

“I mean with Elizabeth.”

He didn’t know what he could say except, “Yes.”

“Good,” she said, taking his hand. She led him farther along the path until their view was again obscured. Down below, the house now seemed far away. Even the smoke from the chimney seemed an altitude below.

Peter realized that Barbara had taken his hand. “Just a bit farther,” she said.

Where the trail seemed to end, there was a kind of lean-to. He searched for the view and found none.

“Not through the foliage,” she said. “You have to look through the tree trunks, like this.”

She lowered herself into the lean-to and motioned to him. He sat down beside her, realizing that his stiffness was unnatural. When his head was close to hers, however, he did see the view. Despite the gathering darkness, he could see the whole distance of the valley below, as if looking under the trees.

“That’s Massachusetts,” she said.

It was planned this way,
he thought.

Barbara rested her head against his shoulder. And as she did so, her hand rested on his leg.

Barbara seemed to sense his momentary discomfort and removed her hand. She lay back, her head resting against the leaves, her right hip slightly raised, her right leg slightly over the left one. And then she stretched, a languorous action, and as she did so, Peter noticed she was stretching all four limbs, bringing her mound of Venus in conspicuous view beneath the dress.

First Paul and Susan, now what? Life in suburbia was supposed to be full of exotic arrangements, but here in the country? Was the whole world going kinky? Was Square Peter still lingering in the age of one-to-one relationships lasting a lifetime? Of course not. He had just left Rose for Elizabeth, hadn’t he? But what was this? Was he imagining more than was actually happening?

“If the weather were nicer,” she said, “I’d invite you for a moonlight dip.”

“Where?” he said foolishly.

“There’s a stream just there,” she pointed. “It’s like a shower under the waterfall.”

“It’s a great view,” he said. “I think we ought to be getting back.”

“Do I bore you?” she asked. “I hope not.”

“No, no,” he assured her, “it’s just—”

He stopped his sentence because he had no alternative. Barbara was rubbing her hand across his middle, slowly, firmly, and her hand was slipping lower.
Yank her hand away, you fool
, he thought, but didn’t, and wondered if it was good sense that was keeping him from acting precipitously, or whether he liked it.

In a moment, there was no mistake about what she was doing. It had happened to him once before. A whore at a bar had made her approach that way, but this was Barbara, Elizabeth’s best friend at school; they were houseguests, they had just met…

He raised himself from the ground, not without difficulty, not without excitement, and with a thick voice suggested again that they should be going down.

Barbara raised herself to her knees and said simply, “I am down,” and at once there were no secrets or ambiguities.

“Look,” he explained to her, “I’m not a prude.”

She laughed nervously. “I didn’t think you were.”

“You’re an attractive girl,” he said, not wanting her to be hurt by his unwillingness.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I’m just not much for this sort of casual thing.”

“I like you,” she said. She seemed desperate.

“Elizabeth and I are just finding our way together. I don’t want to complicate things.” He was trying to say the least that would stop her.

“Please sit down again,” she said.

He did, not wanting to be rude.

“You’ll enjoy Elizabeth more afterward. It’s always that way.”

“Always?”

She was moving closer to him again. “It was Fernando’s condition that we could each have sex with someone else once in a while as long as there was no involvement. To sustain interest in the marriage.”

“Just like that.”

“With friends we don’t see too often. With people we meet. We come together after each episode stronger than before. It will be like that for you, too.”

Not on your life
, he thought.

She was undressing. He rose to his feet unsteadily.

“Oh, please don’t go,” she said. The pleading in her voice threw the alarm switch. Fernando and Elizabeth were down there. Would Fernando dare?
It was their custom.
Would Elizabeth let him? It seemed inconceivable.
Anything was conceivable.

He ran down the hill, hearing Barbara calling after him. He was running too fast for the terrain; he was in danger of stumbling. He slipped, skidded, grasped branches for support, but kept on going until he arrived, his chest heaving for air, at the house.

Fernando, his face a snarl, was slouched with a full glass and said only, “She’s up there.”

Peter ran up the stairs two at a time, but the door of the guest room was locked. “It’s me, Peter,” he said, and she immediately let him in. She locked the door behind him and threw her arms around him. She was sobbing.

“I had no idea,” she said. “I had no idea.”

He pulled her face away just enough to look at her and ask, “What happened?”

“Like a nightmare. I was dozing from the drink—it was more than I’m used to, you know that—and suddenly he was standing at the side of the bed. No overtures, nothing. Just, oh, Peter, he wouldn’t listen to anything I said, he wouldn’t stop. I hit at him and scratched, and it did no good till I—Peter, I had to kick him in the balls.”

He didn’t know if she was laughing now or still crying.

“They’re sick,” she said.

Since Elizabeth had hardly unpacked, it took only a minute to fix their suitcases. Peter led the way down the stairs. Barbara had returned. Her back was against the front door. Whatever Fernando was saying, he stopped the minute he heard footsteps down the stairs.

“Please excuse me,” Peter said to Barbara, his voice firm, Barbara looked at Fernando for instructions.

“They’re not even married,” said Fernando. “You’d think they were an old married couple.” He gulped at his glass. “Your friends,” he said, underlining his contempt.

Peter didn’t want to touch Barbara. He motioned her out of the way.

“They’re useless,” said Fernando. “Let them go.”

Out the door, Peter and Elizabeth warily descended the stone steps into the darkness.

“You’d better give me your bag,” he said.

“It’s okay,” she answered.

They didn’t say another word until they were in the car. Peter locked all four doors, sealing off the outside world. The engine started instantly. He backed up carefully, then swung down the dirt road, following his low beams. The woods were full of limbs and eyes.