The Prize (40 page)

Leah was a study in confusion. ‘Andrew, I haven’t the faintest idea what’s—’

‘You haven’t? You really haven’t? You can’t think of one rotten thing you’ve done to me in the last—’

‘No, of course not!’

‘How convenient—Instant Amnesia,’ said Craig bitterly. ‘All right, maybe I can help refresh your memory. Ever since Harriet’s death, you’ve led me to believe I was responsible. I had some drinks, and lost control of the car, and I killed my wife. That’s been the story, hasn’t it?’

Leah’s eyes had widened, and involuntarily her hand had gone to her cheek, elbow extended, as if ready to avert a blow.

Craig went on relentlessly. ‘All that time, you knew the truth. You had the report from the police. About the tie rod breaking under my car, and swerving us into the skid. All that time, you knew it was an accident, and that you were supposed to have reported it to me, and you didn’t. The police thought you had told me—as any normal human being with compassion would—but you did not. You burdened me with a false guilt instead. You lied to Lucius and you lied to me. Why, Leah? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?’

Leah’s face had transformed before his eyes to something lame and hunted. ‘Who says that’s the truth? Where did you hear that cock-and-bull story? It’s not the truth at all. Ask Sheriff Hollinder if you don’t—’

‘Sheriff Hollinder,’ he said savagely, ‘Miller’s Dam—what in the hell does he know? But I know who
does
know. We cracked up just over the line, in Marquette County. The record of the accident is in the police files in Pikestown. A photocopy of the accident report you kept from me is right here in Stockholm.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, weakening, not believing herself.

‘How could you be so stupid? Couldn’t you know that nothing on earth is ever secret—no truth, no lie—as long as we are born in public, and live and die in public, as long as we are part of a community? And how could you be so vicious? That’s the part I don’t understand. Wasn’t my loss, my grief, enough for one man to bear—without the added guilt you superimposed on these last three years? I might have drunk myself to death, shot myself.’

‘I knew you wouldn’t. You have too much—’ But then she stopped, for she had conceded his truth, and realized it, and had more defence.

‘I think I’ve understood you since I’ve learned the truth, but I’ve hated to face this insight into you. You were willing to sacrifice me for yourself. You wanted me in total servitude, didn’t you? You wanted me entirely beholden to you—a prisoner to your commands and whims—or was it something else? Was it that you wanted security?’

Leah asserted her last claim to self-respect. ‘I didn’t need you. I had Harry Beazley in Chicago all the time, and you know it.’

‘Well, you have him now, Leah, and you latch on to him while you still can. You go back to Chicago and marry that poor bastard, and put a ring in his nose and nag him and try to make him what you want him to be and drive him to drink—make him inadequate you to make yourself—’

The last frame of her composure had crumpled, and she was bared to every thrust. ‘Oh, Andrew, please don’t—’

He had no more stomach for this one-sided carnage. ‘I’ve taken another room. You can stay for the Ceremony. I’m changing our flight tickets. Your plane stops at Chicago. Don’t bother to come to Miller’s Dam. I’ll send you your things.’

‘Andrew—?’

‘I’m getting rid of the place—the house, furniture, guilts—one tidy parcel. I’ll miss Harriet, but she’s in my heart, not in Miller’s Dam, and I’ll miss Lucius—and for the rest, to hell with it.’

‘What are you going to do? You can’t—’

‘I’m going to do what I started to do before I met Harriet. I’m going to find a spot on a high hill over the Pacific—not an artists’ colony, but a place—and I’m going to write.’

‘Write? That’ll be the day. From inside a bottle—’

He stared at her and was sick of the sight of her. ‘Right now, I’m going to ring for a page.’

He strode into his bedroom, and she knew that it was the end, and was right behind him, trembling. ‘Andrew, listen—listen—’

‘Listen?’ He had whirled about to confront her one last time. ‘The way I’ve been listening for three years? The way Emily Stratman listened? You have no talent but for destruction.’

‘Andrew, hear me—don’t be cruel. You’re a writer, you’re supposed to have understanding—try to understand me, let me live by understanding me.’

He hated this, but sensed that he must endure it to be rid of her.

‘You’re wrong,’ she was saying, ‘so wrong about why—why I did what I did. I don’t know why really—or maybe I do now—but it wasn’t to make you my slave, owing me something, or to hold you down or keep you under my thumb. It was—it was something else—’

She choked, and had a spasm of coughing, and he waited.

‘What was it, Leah?’ And he realized that he had ceased to call her Lee. ‘What made you—?’

‘From the beginning—with my father, my mother, the relatives—it was always Harriet—Harriet this, Harriet that—Harriet because she was older, smarter, better-looking, always being praised—when we were kids, when we went to school—and even boy friends and career—Harriet was the one—the shining one. And when she got married, I knew it would be that way again—she with somebody famous and rich—a professional man, a writer—and me scraping along in some hole with an underpaid, nobody schoolteacher—always the one they almost forgot to invite—or write—or think about. It would be poor Leah, let’s not forget Leah, now remember Leah. And then—then—’

Her bosom heaved and settled, and she tried to go on.

‘And then the horrible thing happened to Harriet—to my sister—and I felt shame for all my years of wishing her dead—for all my days of secret envy—and then, almost naturally, because there was an opening that fitted me, and there was no one else, I was there in Miller’s Dam, in her place, in her kitchen and cupboards and garden—and, I don’t know how to explain it, it was like a dream—to be Harriet, have all her advantages, the position, the security, a husband whose name was in the papers—to overnight be Harriet, not poor Leah, it was like a miracle—like God giving me a chance to change my life over—and when you got well, when you recovered, it was like the clock striking midnight, and all my dreams falling away, because then I knew I wasn’t Harriet but poor Leah, and the house wasn’t mine, and Harriet’s husband wasn’t my husband—and I got scared—I was never more scared in my life. You’d leave, I kept thinking, go back to your kind of people, and someday find another Harriet—and I’d have no chance, because I wasn’t in Harriet’s class, I was an impostor, a fake Harriet, and you’d see it—and I couldn’t bear the idea of having tasted what I had, what I’d dreamt of all my life, and then losing it forever.

‘And then some kind of craziness came over me, because you weren’t gone yet, and I began to imagine that maybe I could be Harriet—maybe I could show you—maybe it would work—and so—I don’t know—at first, I didn’t mind your drinking, because it made you depend on me like when you were convalescing and mourning—it made you need me—and then I started to hate the drinking, because it made you not you, not Harriet’s you, and our life wasn’t Harriet’s life, and you didn’t even know I existed as Harriet or Leah—and still, I would not let go—that’s why I couldn’t show you the accident report—I always meant to—but the lie slipped out, and then I couldn’t take it back—maybe didn’t want to—but this is why it all happened the way it did—for no other reason—and I’m sick with remorse—and I admit it—and I want your forgiveness, Andrew—your forgiveness, please, that’s all.’

This had gone beyond a cry for compassion and charity. This had been a plea for clemency of the soul. Craig recognized it as such, and knew that he could not condemn her to a lifetime in purgatory.

‘I’m sorry, Lee, you know I am. I forgive you, of course. If I were a judge, I’d simply say—I sentence you to yourself. There are worse things.’ He paused. ‘You do know who you are now, don’t you, Lee?’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘It’s not so bad being Leah Decker, person, if you will be true to her. Do as I’ve told you. Go to Chicago, and go to that man Beazley. He’s waiting. Enjoy what he has to offer and what you can be. Yes, Lee, I forgive you and wish you well, I truly do. We’ve both lost Harriet, and we needn’t forget her, but it’s no use living any longer with a ghost. One day, when it is all forgotten, I think we might be friends.’

‘I want to be friends, Andrew. I’ll need that.’

‘All right, then. We’ll both say farewell to Harriet. She had her time on earth. Let’s enjoy what is left of ours. I don’t know if we can any more, but let’s try. Shall we?’

‘Yes, Andrew.’

‘Good-bye, Lee.’

‘Good-bye.’

She backed off, and ran to her room. Craig sighed, lifted the receiver, and asked for the
portier’s
desk.

It was 12.26 in the afternoon.

Emily Stratman, invigorated by the sharp, white winter’s day, came back to her uncle’s suite breathless. She had taken a taxi from Kungsgatan, repeatedly consulting her wristwatch. At the
portier’s
desk, accepting her key, she had been impatient when the clerk delayed her to report that there had been three urgent telephone calls for her uncle in the last half-hour, but no messages. ‘The party was most insistent,’ the
portier
had said. ‘He wanted to know when you or Professor Stratman would return.’ Emily had hesitated a moment. ‘Are you sure Professor Stratman isn’t in? He intended to be.’ Then she had dismissed it, and started for the elevator, calling back. ‘I suppose something came up. Anyway, I’m here, so put his calls through to me.’ In the elevator, she had chafed at its slowness, then hurried down the corridor, fearful that she would miss Craig’s telephone call.

But now she was here on time, in fact with several minutes to spare. She dropped her gift parcels on the entry table, lifted a foot to push off one of the overshoes she had borrowed, and then the other, both still wet from the snow, and thinking all the time of what she had done and what might come of it.

She had sent the message to Craig this morning, on an impulse born of the meeting with Lilly at Nordiska Kompaniet. For hours in bed the night before, she had lain awake, examining what Lilly had told her, examining her own life and character, examining her feelings towards Craig. Eventually she had slept, but by breakfast, she had known that she must see Craig once more. Nothing could come of it, she knew, but her affection for him was too great to allow their memories of each other to recall only the last meeting. He deserved more of her, and it was necessary that she explain herself to him. She would not reveal all of herself. That would be impossible. She never had to anyone, not even Uncle Max, and she never would in her life. But she would try to communicate something of it, some part, to Craig, so that he would know why she had acted as she had, and why she could never go on with him.

She had not sent for him immediately in the morning because she had wanted to be by herself, in the clear air, on the snow-lined pavements, to sort out her thoughts and decide what she must say to Craig. Shopping had been the lesser activity, the self-subterfuge, and so she had walked and absently shopped and given her memory rare freedom. Now she was ready.

Going into the sitting-room, unbuttoning her coat, the possibility arose that Craig might not call her at all. Perhaps he had not received her message. Or, perhaps he wanted no more of her. The last could be, but she did not seriously believe it. In any case, his curiosity would make him respond. That, and also the fact that he was a gentleman.

For the first time, she saw the note propped against the lamp on the end table, where the sitting-room telephone also rested. The handwriting was familiar: