The Incredible Charlie Carewe (8 page)

It had been no trouble at all. Charlie simply delayed his departure from the classroom that afternoon, as though he wanted to ask Dexter a question. And when he was passing out the invitations: “See you at the house, eh, Joe? Oh, and, Andy, we’re looking forward to seeing you too,” he had just been standing there with a pleasant, questioning look on his face, and Dexter acted delighted that he had waited and asked him to join the others. All this to-do about “wangling an invitation”! And surely it wasn’t going to be such a difficult job to get to go to bed with her. He must tell that to Jerry—no, better not, he might say something like, “But, Charlie, she’s Dexter’s
wife!
” or “She’s
Dexter’s
wife!” something, anyway, that would make him look in the wrong. The hell with it!

And he knew that Jane knew that he wasn’t going to wait till next Friday to see her, either. He had no classes after eleven on Monday, and Dexter had study hall till five, so the decks would be clear. Meanwhile, what was in this Browning thing? He’d give her a real good time—quote a few hot passages maybe.

He opened the book and peered at the pages in the fading light, walking slower, and just then, in another part of the city, a switch was automatically thrown, the street lamps faded up quickly, and Charlie bowed to the nearest one. “Thanks,” he said, looking back at the illuminated page.

When we met first and loved, I did not build

Upon the event with marble.

He laughed, “And that’s no lie!” Here, here was something:

I think of thee!—my thoughts do twine and bud

About thee, as wild vines, about a tree.

He mused, thinking how he could improve on it. Turning a page, he found one he thought had a familiar ring:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. . . .

A rising wind fluttered the pages and a few drops of rain pattered the dry leaves. Charlie stood quite still, absorbing the words, “I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need——” My Jane—my beautiful Jane. He raised his head and let the rain touch his face, breathing the crisp air. Then he gave a shake to his shoulders and strode on. “That ought to do it,” he said, and resumed his whistling. “Am ah
blue
 . . .”

Jane glanced at the little Sheffield as it gave its little whir, promising that it would announce the hour in the proper time. She ought to rouse Charlie, but it was so good to hold him like this. He seemed to belong to her as he never did when he was awake. She’d wait a little while—at least he was dressed, and at the last minute she could shoo him out, fast. They’d come down for a cup of coffee and a few minutes of talk. But he was always so sleepy and relaxed afterward—he never really wanted to talk, just to stumble into his clothes and leave.

Jane was fully aware of her predicament. Always the clever woman. Proud of her cleverness. Proud of being able to get any young male, when she wanted to, and then pull the dignity bit, without injuring the young man’s ego: “What have we done! We must never see each other again, etc.,” sending the frightened creature back to the halls of ivy.

But Charles, Charles the strong, cool maddening one. Without realizing it she had become involved to depths of which she had never realized she was capable. It wasn’t that his skill as a lover was anything unusual. Actually, if comparisons were in order, there was no skill at all, but even this intrigued her. At first she had wondered if he were a virgin, so crude, so sudden and brief were his demands. She was too clever to ask, for many reasons. It might hurt his vanity to learn that he had appeared inept—or if he had had other experience it might have been something cheap, some education garnered in a house of prostitution. It all didn’t seem to matter any more.

All her energies were spent in contriving to continue their relationship, because she felt she wouldn’t be able to live without him. She carefully learned the patterns of Brian’s activities, without betraying her new interest in them. She had it down to a science, his goings and comings, his schedules, where they were predictable, where they could break down and for what reason; all plotted so that with a minimum of effort on Charles’s part, with a minimum of concern to him, she would find the hours, and occasionally the whole nights, that had become her only reason for existence.

How had he got such a hold on her? Jane felt ruefully that perhaps at last she had found out what love was. At first it had simply been the familiar chemical attraction. The little ringing of a bell inside her that gave notice that it must be eventually answered. That after a few preliminary, mutually agreed upon, unspoken half yieldings, little flights and pursuits, there would be the frantic surrender, the stifling entanglement, the grasping, driving, urgent need for release—never found, never found. Nothing but exhaustion and ennui.

It was no different with Charlie. Why, then, did he seem to wipe out all others from her mind? Some taunting, vague quality, which she had sought to analyze, eluded her. He had an unusual amount of just plain male attractiveness, impulsive and demanding, coupled with a little-boy sweetness that made her want to do all sorts of absurd things like feeding him, and covering him up—babying him! But how stupid Brian was, when he said that Charlie had a brain. Perhaps he was a good student—he had a prodigious memory, and learning was to him simply an effortless skill, simply the amassing of more and more information. But it had taken her no time at all to see that he had no development as yet, that once she broke into his thought pattern, listening, drawing him out, he chattered on and on like a monkey. He was gifted with a great imagination, she had found, but also it was a gift that she mustn’t call by that definition—as she had learned almost to her grief.

She had not been particularly surprised to hear that he had been to Europe. They had been walking by the river one Sunday afternoon. He had a new Cord and had wanted to show it off to her. It had been risky—but Brian was away at a convention, and she had taken the bus into town where he had met her. They had picnicked and napped and made love and his tongue had been loosened by the wine she had brought. They talked of Paris and Florence and he spoke of having skied in Switzerland with a friend of his, Jeff Shelley. A place she had been once or twice a few years before she met Brian. It was up very high in a range of mountains and a field that was too tricky for all but the finest skiers. The inn was small, priding itself on its un-touristy atmosphere—the haven of the experts. Delighted, Jane said, “You must be very good indeed, my darling.” He put an arm around her, saying, “I’ll take you there someday—it’s magnificent, I’ll show it all to you.” Shaking her head, smiling to stop him, she put in, “I’ve been there, darling, I’ve been trying to tell you—don’t you remember the Guntner twins, the guides? I remember you could never tell them apart, and Mama Liesel?” He stopped and added rather airily, “Jane, I hate to remind you, but you are before my time—no, I never knew the twins and Mama Liesel—they’re probably dead and buried.” She said, “But, Charles, I had a Christmas card from Mama—last Christmas.” He had grown a little sullen and quiet. “Why, Charles, I do believe you made it all up—what in the world for!” He shrugged. “I thought you wanted to talk about skiing.” And for some reason, for the rest of the afternoon, she did nothing but apologize. He had never been near Europe but he was hurt because, as he said, he was trying so hard, just to amuse her, and what difference did it make?

It was a peculiarity, to say the least. In a strange way her recognition of these odd facets of his make-up made her tremendously possessive. She knew they made him vulnerable, and she wanted to find out more and more about him so that she could be armed and be able to protect him. How to protect him, practically, actively, was as yet no more than a vague mission. She had found that he was not particularly “teachable.” She had tried, oh, she had tried. “Charlie, don’t you know it’s wrong to tell such whoppers? Don’t you know you could get into a lot of trouble by lying?”

“Certainly. I’m not stupid.”

’Do you realize that in some other circumstances you might get called a ‘lying son of a bitch’ and get hit in the jaw?”

“Jane, my beloved beautiful goddess! Such language!”

“I’m being colorful just to impress you, to shock you into thinking about consequences for a moment.”

“Don’t you worry about me, my fair one. Anybody hits me is going to get hit back.”

“Oh, Charlie, that’s not the point!”

“And nobody’s going to put me in jail or anything, I’m just too smart.”

“Wow! Are you conceited!”

“I am not conceited. Now take Ellerbe, for instance, you know Ellerbe, boy, oh, boy, he talks about himself all the
time!
”

And thus the conversation would degenerate, with Charlie picking up a word or phrase and running away with it. It only served to spoil an afternoon. She would feel irritated at his stupidity, and irritated that he did not seem to notice her irritation. And so it would end, with his chattering endlessly, purposelessly—a Niagara of words that meant nothing.

She stopped trying. Protecting them both from his headstrong impulsiveness was a full-time job. She had to do the thinking, the worrying, the maneuvering out of situations that might be dangerous. Love and exasperation were mismates but they had to be accepted. He loved to give her presents, and she loved him for bringing them to her, postponing her dismay until she was alone. It was impossible to make him understand that she couldn’t wear a lovely expensive blue sweater set he’d found for her in town. How to explain, even if she could tell Brian that she had bought it for herself, that their money was accounted for to the last penny and that she had no rich out-of-town relative who might have sent her such a gift. A pair of heavenly aquamarine earrings—“to match your eyes”—the filmiest of nightgowns, all found themselves in the bottom of a trunk in the storeroom, until she could put her mind on what to do with them. Luckily—and yet strangely—he never spoke of his gifts afterward. It was apparently an impulsive thing—buying and offering, and receiving her smiling, loving “Thank yous” was all there was to it. And foolishly, she would keep the gift around to look at, to dream over as a symbol of his love, postponing its safer storage in the trunk.

His own obvious love for her was reproof enough for any complaints at this tightrope-walking existence. To save him any misery about her relationship with Brian she had explained it, carefully—that she loved Brian “in quite a different way.”

“He’s like a good, solid friend. We’re fond of each other. I feel safe and protected with Brian.” She would have gone further, lied even, about their very occasional sex relations, made them seem even more occasional, and more meaningless than they actually were, for she required reassurance of Charlie’s fidelity. Her jealousy was a torment, especially when he seemed cool and quiet and remote.

He had seemed not to care even to talk about Brian. Perhaps it was a superiority of taste, of a sense of delicacy beyond his years. But, hating herself, she had to probe, to find out, to ask unanswerable questions that would make secure an obviously insecure position.

“Aren’t you ever jealous of me, my darling?” His head on the pillow, the brown muscular arms behind his neck, and the faint, mocking smile, all maddeningly sensuous to her, made her want more of him than he could possibly give. Dissatisfied physically, she tried to fill the emptiness with words.

“Sure I’m jealous. I’m a red-blooded male.”

“I never know when you are—do you ever worry about the fact that I might find someone else—one of the other men in your class, maybe—attractive?”

He seemed to think it over, still looking at her, the smoke from the cigarette in his lips making him squint his eyes, giving him an inscrutable look.

“You’d never do such a thing. You’re too—well bred.”

“Oh, Charlie,” she laughed, “you and your ‘breeding’—I’m not exactly from the wrong side of the tracks, but I spring from a very ordinary, very dull line of teaching people.”

“They must have been wonderful, to bring you into this troubled old world. You’re so beautiful and exciting and lovely.”

“I’m old!” she coaxed.

“Pooh—what’s age!”

“Fifteen years is an awful difference, darling—especially on the wrong side of the ledger.”

“How can it be wrong? I’m flattered and grateful, that a perfect being like you would even look at me!”

This was wine, soothing and comforting, and she drank deeply of it. “You’ll forget all about me. Someday you’ll meet a girl of your own age.”

He raised himself on one elbow—cupped her face in his long fingers. “Stop that! Stop it! You don’t trust me! How could I ever—even look at another woman?”

Charlie stirred as the little clock began to strike. Jane leaned and kissed his forehead. “Wake up, baby-thing—you have to go.” He groaned. “Oh, please—lemme sleep a little——”

Gently she pushed him up to a sitting position; he slept so heavily, like a child. Groggily he shook his head.

“Come on, off you go, it’s very late, I let you sleep.”

“What did you do that for? I should be back in bed.”

Unbelievably, Jane heard the sound of the garage door behind the house. It couldn’t be—dear God, it was—Brian! Choking with fear, she pulled Charlie to his feet, slapping his face frantically, trying to wake him fully.

“Hey, stop! What are you doing anyway!”

“Charlie, Charlie!” she whispered frantically. “It’s Brian, he’s come back! Run, get out of here.”

“Okay, okay, I hear you, what are you so scared about?” He patted her cheek. “Good night, my beautiful, my dearest.” He listened for a second, and then, soundlessly, swiftly, he was gone.