The Pilot's Wife (26 page)

She tried to follow the instructions printed on a placard next to the telephone, but gave up after several tries. She asked an older man in a waxed jacket who was on his way to the men’s room to help her. She dictated the numbers to him, pleased she could remember them. When he had a connection, he handed her back the phone and looked at her blouse. He walked into the men’s room, and, too late, she remembered that she hadn’t thanked him.

The phone rang six or seven times. A door shut, a glass broke, a woman laughed in a high register, the shrill laugh pealing out above all the others. Kathryn was dying inside for Mattie’s voice. Still the phone rang. She refused to hang up.

“Hello?”

The voice was breathless, as though she had been wrestling or running.

“Mattie!” Kathryn cried, spilling relief across the ocean. “Thank God you’re home.”

“Mom, what’s the matter? Are you OK?”

Kathryn composed herself. She didn’t want to frighten her daughter. “How are you?” she asked in a calmer voice.

“Um … I’m OK.” Mattie’s voice still wary. Tentative. Kathryn tried for a cheerier tone. “I’m in London,” she said. “It’s great here.”

“Mom, what are you doing?”

There was music in the background. One of Mattie’s CDs. Sublime, Kathryn thought. Yes, definitely Sublime.

“Can you turn that down a bit?” Kathryn asked, having already had to stick a finger in her other ear from the pub noise. “I can’t hear you.”

Kathryn waited for Mattie to return to the phone. The drinkers around the bar crowded at the edges of the tables. Beside her, a man and a woman held pints of beer and shouted into each other’s ears.

“So,” her daughter said, having returned.

“It’s raining,” Kathryn said. “I’m in a pub. I’ve just been walking around. Seeing the sights.”

“Is that man with you?”

“His name is Robert.”

“Whatever.”

“Not right now.”

“Mom, are you sure you’re OK?”

“Yes, I’m fine. What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You sounded breathless,” Kathryn said.

“Did I?” There was a pause. “Mom, I can’t talk right now.” “Is Julia there?” Kathryn asked.

“She’s at the shop.”

“Why can’t you talk?”

In the background, Kathryn heard part of a sentence, muffled words. A masculine voice.

“Mattie?”

She heard her daughter whisper. A suppressed giggle. Bits of another sentence. A distinctly masculine voice.

“Mattie? What’s happening? Who’s there?”

“No one. Mom, I gotta go.”

Above the phone, on the wall, there were names and numbers written in pen and colored marker.
Roland at Margaret’s,
one note read.

“Mattie, who’s there? I can hear someone.”

“Oh, that’s just Tommy.”

“Tommy Arsenault?”

“Yeah.”

“Mattie …”

“Jason and I broke up.”

The man beside her was jostled, and he spilled beer on Kathryn’s sleeve. He smiled apologetically and tried ineffectually to wipe the spill with his hand.

“When did that happen?” Kathryn asked.

“Last night. What time is it there?”

Kathryn looked at her watch, which she had not yet set to London time. She calculated. “It’s five forty-five,” she said.

“Five hours,” Mattie said.

“Why did you break up with Jason?” Kathryn asked, not acquiescing to the change in subject.

“I didn’t think we had that much in common anymore.” “Oh, Mattie…”

“It’s OK, Mom. Really, it’s OK.”

“What are you and Tommy doing?”

“Just hanging out. Mom, I gotta go.”

Kathryn tried once again to calm herself.

“What are you going to do today?” Kathryn asked.

“I don’t know, Mom. It’s sunny out, but there’s a lot of wet snow out there. You’re sure you’re OK?”

Kathryn toyed with the idea of saying no to keep Mattie on the line, but she knew that was the worst sort of parental blackmail.

“I’m fine,” Kathryn said. “Really.” “I gotta go, Mom.”

“I’ll be home tomorrow night.”

“Cool. Really, I gotta go.”

“Love you,” Kathryn said, wanting to hold on to her daughter’s voice.

“Love you,” Mattie said quickly.

Free to go now.

Kathryn heard the transatlantic click.

She leaned her head against the wall. A young man in a pin-striped suit waited patiently beside her and then, finally, took the receiver from her hand.

She crawled under a sea of legs, retrieved her shoes at the bar, and went out into the rain. She bought an umbrella at a newsstand, thinking as she paid for it that the manufacture of umbrellas in England must be an evergreen enterprise. She felt briefly sorry for herself and thought that in addition to everything else, she would doubtless get a cold. It was Julia’s theory that if one cried in public, one would catch a cold. It wasn’t so much retribution for the display of emotion as it was the irritation of mucous membranes in the presence of foreign germs. Kathryn felt momentarily homesick for Julia, would have liked a glimpse of the woman in her bathrobe, would have liked a cup of tea.

Kathryn marveled at the umbrella’s protection (a brilliant design, she thought) and deeply appreciated the anonymity it afforded. If she watched the feet around her carefully, she could hide her face from people as they passed; the umbrella acted as a veil.

All of London in the rain, she thought, while Ely basked in sunshine.

She walked until she found a park. She thought possibly she should not enter a park at night, although there were lanterns that made pools of light near the benches. The rain was letting up some, seemed merely a drizzle now. The grass had transformed itself into gray beneath the lantern light. She walked to a black bench and sat down.

She was sitting next to what appeared to be a circular rose garden. Lanterns lit the thorns of pruned canes, and the barrier looked formidable. Kathryn thought: It was not just a betrayal of me, but a betrayal of Mattie and Julia. A violation of the family circle.

The rain stopped altogether, and she put the umbrella on the bench. Her chenille scarf, in her travels, had begun to come unraveled at a corner. She fingered the unanchored stitch, gave it a tentative tug. She could fix this when she got home, remake the corner with another strand of chenille. She tugged a bit harder on the yarn, pulled out six or seven stitches, an oddly satisfying gesture. She tugged again, felt the stuttering of the tiny knots giving way.

She unraveled one row and then another. Then another and another. The yarn made a loose and pleasant tangle on her knees, at her ankles. Jack had given her the scarf for her birthday.

Kathryn pulled until she had a mound of twisted chenille as big as a small pile of leaves. She let the last of the yarn fall onto the grass. She stuck her frozen hands into the pockets of her coat.

She would have to recast all her memories now.

An older man in a tan raincoat stopped in front of her. Perhaps he was distressed to find a woman sitting on a wet bench with a tangle of yarn at her feet. Possibly he was married and was thinking of his wife. In the instant before he could ask after Kathryn, she said hello and bent to retrieve the yarn. She found the end and began to roll the black chenille into a ball rapidly, with practiced gestures.

She smiled.

“Dreadful weather,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” she said pleasantly.

Seemingly satisfied by Kathryn’s display of industry, the man moved on.

When he was gone, she tucked the yarn out of the way under the bench. She thought: I didn’t know about my daughter’s sexual life, and I didn’t know about my husband’s sexual life.

In the distance, she could see halos on street lamps, a chorus of brake lights, a couple running across a road. The rain had started again. They had on long raincoats, and the young woman wore heels. They kept their chins tucked against the rain. The man held his raincoat closed in front of his crotch with one hand, had his other arm around the woman’s shoulder, urging her forward before the light changed.

Muire Boland and Jack might have done that in this city, she thought. Run to beat a light. On the way to dinner, to a pub. To the theater. To a party to be with other people. To a bed.

Muire Boland’s marriage had weight. Two children as opposed to one. Two young children.

And then she thought: How could anything that had produced such beautiful children be thought invalid?

She walked until she saw, from a distance, the discreet marquee, a facade she recognized. The hotel was quiet when she entered, and only a clerk, standing in a cone of light behind the reception desk, greeted her. As she walked to the elevators, her clothes felt heavy and sodden.

She was enormously relieved that she could remember her room number. As she put the key in the lock, Robert emerged from the room next door.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. His forehead was furrowed, his tie loosened to the middle of his chest. “I’ve been out of my mind wondering what happened to you,” he said.

She blinked in the unflattering hall light and pushed her hair off her face.

“Do you know what time it is?” he asked. Sounding, in his genuine concern, like a parent with an errant child.

She did not.

“It’s one o’clock in the morning,” he informed her.

She withdrew the key from its lock and moved to where Robert stood, holding open his door. Through the framed space, she could see a meal, virtually untouched, on a tray at the foot of the bed. Even from the hallway, the room smelled heavily of cigarette smoke.

“Come in,” he said. “You look like hell.”

Once inside the door, she let her coat fall from her shoulders. “You’re actually dirty,” Robert said.

She slipped off her shoes, which had lost their shape and color. He pulled out the chair from the desk.

“Sit down,” he said.

She did as she was told. He sat on the bed, facing her, their knees touching — her wet stockings, his gray wool. He had on a white shirt, not the same shirt he’d had on at lunch. He looked a different man, drawn and exhausted, the eyes lined, an older man than at lunch. She imagined that she, too, had aged considerably.

He took her hands in his. Her hands felt swallowed by his long fingers.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“I’ve been walking. Just walking. I don’t know where I went. Yes, I do. I went to a pub and drank beer. I walked to a rose garden and unraveled a scarf.”

“Unraveled a scarf.”

“My life, I meant to say.”

“I gather it was bad,” he said.

“You could say that.”

“I gave you thirty-five minutes, and then I followed you to the address. You must have gone already. I walked up and down the street for an hour and a half, and then I saw a woman who wasn’t you leave the building. She had two children with her.”

Kathryn looked at the uneaten sandwich on the tray. It might have been turkey.

“I think I’m hungry,” she said.

Robert reached around, took the sandwich from the tray, and handed it to her. She balanced the plate on her lap, and she shivered slightly.

“Eat some, and then get into a hot bath. Do you want me to order you a drink?”

“No, I think I’ve had enough. You’re being very parental.” “Jesus, Kathryn.”

The meat in the sandwich had been pressed so flat that it felt on her tongue like slippery vinyl. She put the sandwich down.

“I was getting ready to call the police,” he said. “I’d already called the number where you’d gone. Repeatedly. There was never an answer.”

“They were Jack’s children.”

He didn’t seem surprised.

“You guessed,” she said.

“It was a possibility. I didn’t think about children, though. That was her? Muire Boland? Leaving the building? His … ?”

“Wife,” she said. “They were married. In a church.”

He sat back. She watched the disbelief turn reluctantly to belief.

“In a Catholic church,” Kathryn said.

“When?”

“Four and a half years ago.”

On the bed was an overnight bag, unzipped at the top. The shirt he’d worn at lunch was peeking out of the bag. Bits of a newspaper had fallen off the bed onto the floor. On the desk, there was a half-empty bottle of mineral water.

She saw that he was examining her, as a doctor might do. Looking at the face for signs of illness.

“I’m over the worst of it,” she said.

“Your clothes are ruined.”

“They’ll dry out.”

He held her knees.

“I’m so sorry, Kathryn.”

“I want to go home.”

“We will,” he said. “First thing tomorrow. We’ll change the tickets.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” she said, handing him the plate back.

“No.”

“You tried to warn me.”

He looked away.

“I am hungry,” she said. “But I can’t eat this.” “I’ll order you fruit and cheese. Some soup.” “That would be nice.”

She stood up, then faltered. She felt light-headed.

He stood with her, and she pressed her forehead against his shirt.

“All those years,” she said, “it was all false.”

“Shhhh …”

“He had a son, Robert. Another daughter.”

He pulled her closer, trying to comfort her.

“All those times we made love,” she said. “For four and a half years, I made love to the man while he had another woman. Another wife. I did things. We did things. I can remember them….”

“It’s OK.”

“It’s not OK. I sent him love notes. I wrote things on cards to him. He accepted them.”

Robert rubbed her back.

“It’s better that I know,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“It’s better not to live a lie.”

She sensed a quick change in his breathing, like a hiccup. She drew away and saw that he looked drained. He rubbed his eyes.

“I’ll take my bath now,” she said. “I’m sorry to have worried you. I should have called.”

He put a hand up as if to tell her she needn’t apologize. “What matters is that you’re back,” he said, and she could see the strain of not having known on his face.

“You can hardly stand,” he said.

“I’d like to take the bath here. I don’t want to be alone in my room. After the bath, I’ll be fine.”

She saw that he doubted she would be fine.