The Man Who Loved His Wife (6 page)

Cindy removed from her mouth the stalk of celery she had been sucking like a stick of candy. “After all, Los Angeles is supposed to be the coming land of opportunity, and with all of Don's connections out here, we thought . . .” Confused by her father's frown she giggled again.

“What connections?” croaked Fletcher.

“Nan's father,” Cindy began. Don cut her off with the statement that he had excellent contacts of his own. Cindy interrupted with stubborn authority. “Nan's father couldn't have tried harder to help us if Don were his own son-in-law.”

The fact could be questioned. His own son-in-law had been made executive assistant while the only help the banker had given Don was introductions to certain friends. Before this could be stated, Don told his father-in-law, apologetically, “We know you're not active now, sir. We didn't expect anything.” Expectancy shone out of his clear, bright, undergraduate face. At twenty-nine, Don Hustings had the docility and easy charm of a boy who has gone to the correct prep school and college. Spiritually he had never got out of either. He continued to wear the deferential garments of the schoolboy who knows his place in the company of older, wealthier men. Good breeding and background were as obvious as his Maryland accent and fresh complexion. He had many notable ancestors but the family had been impoverished by a series of historical events that had begun with the Civil War and continued through a century of panics and depressions. Don could recite these misfortunes like a catechism.

He had dark, deep-set eyes and the prominent curling lips of a classical statue. Adoring him, Cindy could never forget that other girls' fathers poured benefits upon less worthy sons-in-law. Vehemently she declared, “Don isn't the type to depend on relations. And he's had a couple of very good offers in case you're interested.”

Fletcher rumbled out another question.

Don understood well enough to answer, “I couldn't accept that sort of money, sir.”

The money people offered was never satisfactory to Don and Cindy. The ten thousand dollars that Fletcher had sent his daughter as a wedding present had simply gone with the wind. Don had been deeply in debt when they married, and was now in danger of being engulfed. Both he and Cindy felt it important to keep up appearances.

“Couldn't accept that sort of money!” The voice in Fletcher's mind was clear and scornful. The young man's lack of humility irritated him. He would have liked to remind the complacent fellow that he had made his money without asking favors of anyone. Aloud, “What the hell do you think you're worth?” he bellowed. Caught up in anger he forgot the therapist's instructions for producing sound and controlling breath.

“What did you say, Daddy?”

Elaine had understood but did not try to interpret Fletcher's wrath. She felt sorry for Don and did not wish to see him humiliated again. Her mouth closed stubbornly, and she pressed herself back as if her body were part of the chair. Don caught her eye. A swift glance flashed between them. Fletcher, watching warily, saw these two in the familiar vision, unclothed, embracing. On the table his big hands lay curled in frustration. His skin itched with impotent rage.

Elaine started collecting plates. Sighing, Cindy followed. The two men sat like strangers on a bus. Fletcher's silence embarrassed Don, but his conversation would have been harder to take. If it had not taken so much effort, Fletcher would have let him know what he thought about a generation that believed the world owed it a living. Had he succeeded in expressing himself he would not have been so sensitive to a swift exchange of smiles when Elaine returned with the dessert. Again the vision flashed across the screen of consciousness. What Fletcher saw was not a girl in a flowered dress and a young man in a neat summer jacket erect behind his plate, but the guilty pair—faithless wife, worthless son-in-law—naked in a shadowy place.

“Why are you looking so impatient, dear? You've got plenty of time. Didn't you say you'd put off the barber until four today?”

Fletcher had told her, but she had apparently forgotten, that he was to see his dentist that afternoon. He spoke angrily, too fast and without giving thought to breathing and the control of abdominal muscles. Sounds like animal grunts struck his ears with fresh agony.

Before Cindy could chirp the usual “What, Daddy?” Elaine translated with her loathsome tact, “Oh, darling, I forgot your dentist appointment. But you've got plenty of time still. Look, I've made you a chocolate mousse.”

For no reason Cindy giggled, Don stared at the centerpiece as if he hoped to find some mystic answer among the asters. Elaine set the plate before him. Once more they looked at each other, heat welled up in Fletcher, and he flung the dish of chocolate mousse at his wife.

“Daddy, what are you doing?”

Under blond curls Cindy's face glowed with delight. She had good features and flawless skin, but was too solid to be noticeable among all the pretty girls who did their lips and eyes and hair in the same fashion and wore clothes from the proper stores. She had never been so lovely as at this moment of witnessing her father's cruelty to the woman who had taken his daughter's rightful place in his heart.

AT THE RISK of being late for the dentist's appointment, Fletcher lingered in the house until Don drove off to meet a fraternity brother who had good contacts. Cindy took one look at the untidy kitchen and decided to drive into the city with her father.

Elaine set about her chores briskly, eager to be done. Even housework came easier when there was no one to watch, interrupt, demand attention. To save effort she stacked dishes on the tray and carried them to the kitchen. At the threshold she paused, struck anew by the clutter, confusion seemed symbolic, her life a mess of untidiness, disappointment, and futile chores.
The tray trembled in her hands. She thought of herself cringing, a victim without dignity or self-respect, while her husband assaulted her with pudding.

Her tray fell. Porcelain clattered and broke on the kitchen tiles. Plates, cups, saucers, glasses, everything. It was no accident. She had willed the destruction. So many broken dishes! Fletcher would be furious.

For an instant tears threatened. Elaine thought of excuses, confession, soft appeal. These were immediately rejected. Defiance hardened her. Deliberately and in malice she walked to the counter and, one by one, hurled every dish upon the tiled floor. One plate rebelled, rolled into a corner, remained whole. She picked it up and flung it down with sturdy malevolence. When every soiled dish and glass lay in shards, she collected all the dirty pots and utensils, carried them to the garbage cans, covered them securely and returned to the kitchen.

She had no idea that she was being watched.

Next she set about the task of sweeping up the wreckage, gathering broken bits into the dustpan, emptying it into the garbage tins. On her third trip she saw the man, recoiled and instinctively hid the guilty dustpan behind her back.

“Didn't you hear my car? I didn't see you in the garden so I came to find you here.”

It was Ralph Julian. After all of her confessions to his invisible shape the solid man seemed unreal. Her hand trembled. He took the dustpan from her.

“Accident?”

“I broke them on purpose.” Defiant, as though he had provoked the destruction, she laughed spitefully.

“So many dishes?”

“Just the ones we used at lunch, Service for four. We've still got eight of everything. Haviland.” She laughed again at the extravagance. “We bought the set, a dozen of each, when we moved in here.”

Ralph helped her with the rest of the clearing up. “Don't say anything to your husband until he's in a better mood.”

“What makes you think he's in a bad one?”

“Something must have caused the havoc. Or do you break dishes just for the hell of it?”

They stood under the olive tree. Leaf shadows darkened her face. She had changed from the soiled dress, so that there were no visible signs of the assault. For all that she had ached to tell Ralph, she could find nothing to say except that it had been a long time since they had seen each other. Ralph had wanted to visit her, he said, but had kept away because he thought her husband did not approve of him.

“It's not you, it's every man. The way he watches me, you'd think the supermarket was a bordello.” She had learned the word from her father. Once she had said it to Fletcher and he had laughed, telling her that she was too genteel. “In this country we call it a whorehouse.” The recollection brought a faint smile.

Again there was silence under the olive tree. Hot afternoon sun pierced the shadow. Elaine asked him into the house. He reached ahead to open the screen door. Her body brushed against his, so that she stiffened and hurried ahead. There was still a clutter in the kitchen but she made no apologies.

In the living room harsh light lay in yellow rectangles and sent up cruel blades of brightness from the polished tiles between Oriental rugs. Elaine hurried to draw the curtains. At once the mood softened. A dimmed mirror threw back her image. “I ought to comb my hair,” she said, but threw herself upon the couch, stretching her long legs and resting sandaled feet upon a cushion.

Ralph stood above the couch and looked down upon her body. “I've thought of you every day.” His tone was too ardent. “I couldn't stay away any longer.”

She sat up abruptly, asked for a cigarette, moved to the far edge of the couch after he had leaned close to give her a light. His hands smelled of antiseptic soap. Elaine held herself tight to show indifference. He sat at the couch's other end. The curtains blew out like inflated balloons. Elaine and Ralph watched as though this were some strange phenomenon.

She thought of the meetings in daydreams, the conversations
carried on in silence, the relief of confession.
My husband wants to die.
In every revery the facts gushed out; in the man's presence she felt a cowardly fool.
Some day he'll do it.
Perhaps, she told herself, it was all a product of her inflamed imagination; or worse, a guilty wish. No, no, no, her heart protested, she did not want to gain freedom that way. Her hands flew to cover the shameful color that flushed in her face.

Through all the weeks that he had denied himself this visit, Ralph had thought about Elaine, cherished many images, tried to capture the elusive delight of her changing expressions, recalled the modeling of bone, the coral tint which often and unexpectedly brightened ivory flesh. He had tried without success to exorcise the spell by making love to a handsome nurse, had told himself severely that he did not approve of involvements with married women. “I've got something to show you.” With a tense hand he took out his wallet and from it took a clipping mounted on cardboard.

“Recognize the girl?”

“Me. But years ago.”

Professional dignity slipped away. No longer self-contained and superior, the doctor became a diffident boy. He had found the picture in an advertisement in an old magazine given to him by a patient who had wanted him to read a story he had written. “The girl looked like you, and then I remembered that you told me you'd put yourself through college working as a model.”

“That's ten years ago. I was a sophomore and missed an ancient history class to pose for that picture.”

He returned the picture to his wallet carefully while his eyes were fixed upon her. The scrutiny was almost contact. Elaine became nervous, left the couch, sought protection in deeper shadow. There was the smell of challenge in the room, in the scent of flowers, in the hot wind. Ralph's body was long and spare, his head narrow. Fiery red hot sparks shot from his green-tinted eyes. Not daring to let him see that she recognized mood and masculinity, Elaine bustled about the room in the need to avoid contact of eye or hand. She talked in a nervous, flutey voice about the years when she had worked as a model, rushed
from class to photographer's studio, from studio to date. Her days and nights had been too crowded, she had studied when she came in after theater and dancing, had got along with three or four hours of sleep. Excitement had carried her along, she had lived in a whirl of fascinating activity. Ralph saw her as she must have been before her marriage, a gay and popular girl, teasing and enchanting the many men who had surely been in love with her.

“But you wouldn't have liked me then. I was too frivolous.” Recollection of frivolity brought out a stream of laughter, “I'm sure you were much more serious when you were at college.”

“Too serious.” There had never been a moment in his life when Ralph had doubted his dedication to the profession of his foster-father. Above all in his life he had wanted to prove himself to the generous pair who had treated him as their own son.

At last she settled down again, hands folded primly in her lap. Ralph chose the far end of the couch. In the dim room they sat like sedate children waiting to be sent out onto the floor of the dancing school. Presently Ralph moved closer and reached for Elaine's hand. The kiss caught them both off balance.

For months she had been thinking about this man, but not in this way, not
physically
. He had been her confessor, the vessel into which she had poured her fears for her husband; certainly not the instrument of relief or revenge. Surprise made her vulnerable. She clung to Ralph, accepted and returned the kiss. But only for a few instinctive seconds. With a shudder, recognizing weakness, she pulled away, pushed at his chest, made movements of rejection.