The Husband (6 page)

It was Amanda’s shrill voice that cut him down. “Jack!”

“Present and accounted for. What do you want?” He continued playing, but with a light touch.

“For heaven’s sake,” said Amanda, “Rose has been trying to get your attention.”

“Well, speak up, Rosie old gjrl, bellow like Amanda does. It’s a sure attention getter.”

“Jack,” said Rose, “do you handle divorces?”

Jack took his hands off the piano.

Peter was more surprised by the word than the question. Divorce, he thought, is an integral part of marriage, a shadow of possibility, an occasional secret wish quickly chopped down, or a brooding hope lurking in thoughts and arguments. The husband who has not had a fleeting thought of divorce is a liar, to himself mainly. The wife who says she has never had a thought of divorce is also a liar. The word, spoken out loud for the first time not in argument, where it can be a weapon thrust, but in front of friends, the way Rose had asked the question, was more than that: not a gauntlet flung (for a gauntlet can always be picked up) but a line crossed (when you look behind you, the line has disappeared). The public question, unlike the private threat, cannot be repealed. Even if never spoken again, it becomes a permanent fixture of the marriage.

In an instant, Peter noticed the striking difference between Rose’s expression and Amanda’s. Rose, controlled on the surface, held the muscles of her face in a counterfeit of calm. Amanda looked as if she had been slapped.

“Funny you should ask that,” Jack said. “Just this afternoon—”

Amanda whipped into his sentence. “Don’t tell it.”

“Told
you
, why can’t I tell
them
?”

Amanda crumpled into a small patch of brown broken leaves, swept out of sight. Jack, suddenly enthusiastic for his subject, stood up from the piano, put a foot up on the stool and began talking at Rose and Peter with relish, unaware, it seemed, that his wife, for all practical purposes, was no longer in the room.

“I was telling Amanda about my little fun afternoon and didn’t finish till we got to the door tonight. You didn’t overhear us, did you, Rose?”

Rose shook her head.

“Well,” he continued, “I thought maybe you had. You see, there’s this fellow I represented on a business deal—drew his will, too, I did—who’s been feuding with his missus, and this afternoon the big confrontation scene took place in my office. Armbruster, who’s representing the wife, is a nice quiet old guy, never had a fistfight in his life. He brings her to the office and my guy’s there because we figure we might patch it up. You see, there’re some kids involved.”

Peter caught Rose looking at him.

“It seems like everything was going to go peaceful when my fellow says something—it seemed unimportant—and the wife grabs the letter opener off my desk and throws it at him—missed, thank God—and Armbruster looks like he’s going to have a heart attack. And my guy picks up a paperweight, and I yell at him, ‘Put it down!’ The damn fool smashes it down on the glass top of my desk. Smithereens.”

Peter got up. “Nice quiet profession, the law. Now why don’t we all just—”

“Wait a sec,” interrupted Jack. “Haven’t finished. I’m going to add the cost of a new glass top to that guy’s bill. Not that the poor bastard’ll be able to pay, not in this jurisdiction. The husband always gets screwed by the judge more than he ever got screwed by his ex. Sure I handle divorces, Rose, got to. Hate ’em like every other lawyer. Why d’ja ask?”

“Can’t we talk about something pleasant?” said Peter.

“What makes you think advertising is pleasant?” said Jack, haw-hawing. “Mind if I pour myself another? Thanks.”

The only sounds in the room: Jack’s steps to the bar, the clink of the ice, the Scotch pouring.

“Two doubles is four,” said Amanda. She hadn’t disappeared after all.

Jack had filled the glass too high and leaned down to take a slurp so that he could carry it “Three doubles is six,” he said. “You kids trying to play scoreboard? I tried to tell this guy most people can’t afford a divorce. It’s not just the trip to Mexico, it’s two apartments, double a lot of living expenses, and the husband gets socked for his wife’s legals as well as his own, and he’s up a tree and can’t pay. This fellow who was in this afternoon, I know his business, and he sure as hell can’t pay—but mostly it’s the animus. If you think people are civilized, you haven’t seen them tangling in a divorce action.”

“Okay, okay, Jack,” said Peter.

“You can call me John, Peter, old boy,” said Jack, haw-hawing with the pleasure of attention. “You know, every time I settle a damn case where steam’s let off, I make a real big college try to get the adversaries to shake hands, and you know where it’s hardest? Divorces. They’ve been playing with each other’s breast, bum, and crotch, swallowing each other’s spit for years, and then won’t shake hands.”

Amanda looked as if she might explode. “Jack, stop that talk!”

“Okay,” said Jack. “Married people body around together, present company excepted. That okay, Amanda? Peter and Rosie must have gone to bed twice because those two kids upstairs looks like ’em, but we don’t have any damn kids, and that’s proof Amanda and I never go to bed.”

He ended the speech inches from Amanda’s face. “How’s that, lover?”

Amanda’s voice was barely audible. “That’s cruel, Jack,” she said.

Jack took Amanda by the collar of her dress as if she were on display as a bad example. “I have my personal Legion of Decency right here,” he said.

“Lay off, Jack,” said Peter.

“Watch your language, Peter, old boy,” said Jack, enjoying himself and not noticing Rose coming up to him.

“Aren’t there ever friendly divorces?” asked Rose, and Jack could see it was a sincere question, which worried him because the drinks had relaxed him enough to begin noticing other people, and he could see that Rose wasn’t being casual at all. He let go of Amanda’s collar.

Peter could hear Jack’s voice shift gears. “Oh, some divorces are real quiet, but that’s usually when one of the parties skips. The only noise you get is a lot of complaining about what a bastard the vanished spouse is, but without the other spouse right there fighting back it’s a lullaby compared to usual. Your client tells you his side of the story over and over, and eventually you hear from the fled spouse’s lawyer. You pick up her official story. What neither of them tells you is what it’s like in bed together. But you always know.”

Jack was convinced it was going to be a marvelous evening. When a stranger stopped him in the street and asked the time or directions, he enjoyed it. He loved being a father to the clients who asked endless questions, some of which were questions for a lawyer, some for a doctor, and some nobody ought to be asked. He felt best when he provided authoritative answers, or answers the client would believe to be the result of deep study and knowledge or vast personal experience. A client who asked a great many questions usually was treated more kindly at bill time than the occasional fellow who said to Jack, “Just tell me what the law says and what I can do about it.” The pleasure Jack took in magistrating was usually less in Peter’s presence; Peter was knowledgeable in so many ways Jack could get caught out on. It therefore heightened Jack’s enjoyment now to see Peter’s puzzled expression.

Rose was asking how custody worked, and Jack said, “The wife always gets custody. It’s the big weapon, and she gets custody unless she’s a whore, I mean a real one for money, that you can prove, or a dope addict, and I don’t get that kind of trade. As far as my practice is concerned, the wife always gets the kids.”

“Doesn’t that stop a lot of divorces?” Peter hadn’t intended to speak but there it was, out.

“Look, Petey,” said Jack, “I’m talking firsthand experience. What the hell do you and I know about the people who never get to lawyers? Maybe kids stop ’em. Maybe religion. No one in Amanda’s family ever got a divorce. Maybe habit stops ’em. When they get as far as the law, I know if you can reconcile ’em it’s because they can’t stop sleeping together, and if you can’t it’s because they don’t, or they’re sleeping around, or they’d rather not, like Amanda.”

Would Jack ever actually shoot Amanda? The thought would never occur to him. The weaponry of marriage, Peter thought, outdoes anything the Army comes up with. Would he set fire to her dress? Would he smother her with a pillow while she slept? Never.

“Do I read you wrong?” said Jack to Amanda. “I’m sure these fine people would let us use their guest room for half an hour—”

“Leave her alone, Jack,” said Peter.

The words washed off Jack’s back. “Or we can go to a motel,” he continued, inches from Amanda’s face, “if you think having people in the house would bother you, or have you got cramps, dear?” He turned to Rose and Peter. “Some Februarys she has cramps for thirty-one days. She’ll go to her grave without ever having an orgasm and—”

Amanda slapped his face hard.

That was a wild train Jack had gotten onto, thought Peter. He looked at Rose for having brought up the subject that triggered Jack. Rose moved her shoulders helplessly.

“I need a drink,” said Jack.

“I think you’ve probably had enough,” said Rose.

“Hey, Pete,” said Jack menacingly, “do I have to go to the bar down the street to get a drink when I’m your guest?” He looked like a kid burning ants.

Peter touched his hand to Jack’s arm and said calmly, “We’ll have some wine with dinner, Jack.”

Jack knocked Peter’s hand off. “What a cheap-jack host.”

“Jack, you ought to be in the advertising business,” said Peter, determined to smooth things over. “In my business everybody tanks up at lunch. Drinks before dinner wouldn’t hit you so hard.”

“The drinks didn’t hit me. She did,” he said, jabbing a thumb at Amanda.

“Well, you’re even.”

Amanda came across to Rose like a cartoon rabbit, walking on the balls of her feet in tiny steps.

“Rose,” she said apologetically, shaking her head, “I feel nauseated.”

“I heard you!” bellowed Jack.

Mildly Amanda said, “All I said was, I was nauseated.”

“You always use that as a goddamn excuse.”

“You knew I had rheumatic fever,” said Amanda. “You didn’t buy a pig in a poke. How many times have I told you that?”

“I didn’t see the poke,” said Jack.

“Now let it go!” said Peter. He took Amanda by the arm in almost courtly fashion and walked her closer to Jack, smiling a smile he used with clients in serious situations, a smile that could crack at an instant if its bluff were called. “Hey, can’t I get you kids to shake hands?”

The thing that helped the most was strained laughter coming from all of them at once.

Bravely Rose said, “I think I’ll have another screwdriver.”

“Isn’t Petey enough?” said Jack, ho-hoing, hoping now with the rest of them that things would calm down, that he would calm down, because he had felt that angina squeeze in his chest that the doctor said wasn’t angina and he himself was sure wasn’t angina, only God or Death or Somebody saying, take it easy, bud.

“Petey,” Jack said, “what’s wrong with women? You make a little joke, let loose, have some fun after a goddamn day full of making-a-living crap, and they go straight, square, and simpleminded.”

The cheese stood still in the middle of the room.

“I’ll make my own,” said Rose, gladly adding the sin of bartending to that of having a second drink voluntarily.

“I’ll get it for you,” said Peter, feeling kindly toward Rose, toward Amanda, toward all women at that moment. All women: Elizabeth?
Rub the mind blank. Quick
.

Peter took Jack’s glass, gave Rose her drink, took Amanda’s glass, and when everyone, including himself, was armed, raised his drink: “To alcohol.”

“Crap!” said Jack. “It makes strong men weak, weak men strong, all men weep, and nobody ought to be without it. The way the deck is stacked, it takes a strong man or woman to get a divorce. I don’t mean just think about it—everybody thinks about it—I mean, go—all the way! Amanda, baby, you’re lucky I’m a weak man.” Jack toasted her. “Skoal!”

Amanda managed a weak smile.

“Dinner will be ready in less than ten minutes,” said Rose out of nowhere, not being sure whether it would really be ready in ten or twenty but feeling compelled to say something.

Jack sidled up to her. “Rosie, how come you’re so curious tonight?”

Rose seemed to think about her answer for a long time. She wanted it to sound adult and thoughtful, even abstract, to establish the nature of her inquiry as something less than personal.

“Every young girl is interested in marriage,” she said. “I guess every married woman is curious about divorce.”

“Hey Petey,” said Jack, “your wife has turned into a philosopher.” Jack suddenly felt the platform disappearing from under his feet, his chance at building a spell gone. How to retrieve it? His gaze caught Amanda’s, and there were tears in her eyes.

“Oh, come on now, baby,” he said to her, “I’ve just been having some fun. Too much inkohol. Baby, let me get you another drink, okay?”

“All right,” said Amanda.

“How about a little kiss for Uncle Jack?”

Amanda shook her head.

“How about a little old handshake? All right?” Amanda had no choice. Peter watched Jack and Amanda shaking hands. It was the kind of moment you wanted a camera for.