The Progress of Love (43 page)

When the plane landed, she got up and went to meet them, and she kissed Laurence as if he had returned from a journey. He seemed happy. She thought that she seldom concerned herself about Laurence’s being happy. She wanted him to be in a good mood, so that everything would go smoothly, but that was not the same thing.

“It was wonderful,” Laurence said. “You could see the changes in the landscape so clearly.” He began to tell her about a glint lake.

“It was most enjoyable,” said Sophie.

Denise said, “You could see way down into the water. You could see the rocks going down. You could even see sand.”

“You could see what kind of boats,” said Peter.

“I mean it, Mother. You could see the rocks going down, down, and then sand.”

“Could you see any fish?” said Isabel.

The pilot laughed, though he must have heard that often enough before.

“It’s really too bad you didn’t come up,” Laurence said.

“Oh, she will, one day,” said the pilot. “She could be out here tomorrow.”

They all laughed at his teasing. His bold eyes met Isabel’s, and seemed in spite of their boldness to be most innocent, genial, and kind. Respect was not wanting. He was a man who could surely mean no harm, no folly. So it could hardly be true that he was inviting her.

He said goodbye to them then, as a group, and was thanked once more. Isabel thought she knew what it was that had unhinged her. It was Sophie’s story. It was the idea of herself, not Sophie, walking naked out of the water toward those capering boys. (In her mind, she had already eliminated the girl.) That made her long for, and imagine, some leaping, radical invitation. She was kindled for it.

When they were walking toward the car, she had to make an effort not to turn around. She imagined that they turned at the same time, they looked at each other, just as in some romantic movie, operatic story, high-school fantasy. They turned at the same time, they looked at each other, they exchanged a promise that was no less real though they might never meet again. And the promise hit her like lightning, split her like lightning, though she moved on smoothly, intact.

Oh, certainly. All of that.

But, it isn’t like lightning, it isn’t a blow from outside. We only pretend that it is.

“If somebody else wouldn’t mind driving,” Sophie said. “I’m tired.”

•   •   •

That evening, Isabel was bountifully attentive to Laurence, to her children, to Sophie, who didn’t in the least require it. They all felt her happiness. They felt as if an invisible, customary barrier had been removed, as if a transparent curtain had been pulled away. Or perhaps they had only imagined it was there all the time? Laurence forgot to be sharp with Denise, or to treat her as his rival. He did not even bother to struggle with Sophie. Television was not mentioned.

“We saw the silica quarry from the air,” he said to Isabel, at dinner. “It was like a snowfield.”

“White marble,” said Sophie, quoting. “Pretentious stuff. They’ve put it on all the park paths in Aubreyville, spoiled the park. Glaring.”

Isabel said, “You know we used to have the White Dump? At the school I went to—it was behind a biscuit factory, the playground backed on to the factory property. Every now and then, they’d sweep up these quantities of vanilla icing and nuts and hardened marshmallow globs and they’d bring it in barrels and dump it back there and it would shine. It would shine like a pure white mountain. Over at the school, somebody would see it and yell, ‘White Dump!’ and after school we’d all climb over the fence or run around it. We’d all be over there, scrabbling away at that enormous pile of white candy.”

“Did they sweep it off the floor?” said Peter. He sounded rather exhilarated by the idea. “Did you eat it?”

“Of course they did,” said Denise. “That was all they had. They were poor children.”

“No, no, no,” said Isabel. “We were poor but we certainly had candy. We got a nickel now and then to go to the store. It wasn’t that. It was something about the White Dump—that there was so much and it was so white and shiny. It was like a kid’s dream—the most wonderful promising thing you could ever see.”

“Mother and the Socialists would take it all away in the dead of night,” said Laurence, “and give you oranges instead.”

“If I picture marzipan, I can understand,” said Sophie. “Though you’ll have to admit it doesn’t seem very healthy.”

“It must have been terrible,” said Isabel. “For our teeth, and everything. But we didn’t really get enough to be sick, because there were so many of us and we had to scrabble so hard. It just seemed like the most wonderful thing.”

“White Dump!” said Laurence—who, at another time, to such a story might have said something like “Simple pleasures of the poor!” “White Dump,” he said, with a mixture of pleasure and irony, a natural appreciation that seemed to be exactly what Isabel wanted.

She shouldn’t have been surprised. She knew about Laurence’s delicacy and kindness, as well as she knew his bullying and bluffing. She knew the turns of his mind, his changes of heart, the little shifts and noises of his body. They were intimate. They had found out so much about each other that everything had got cancelled out by something else. That was why the sex between them could seem so shamefaced, merely and drearily lustful, like sex between siblings. Love could survive that—had survived it. Look how she loved him at this moment. Isabel felt herself newly, and boundlessly, resourceful.

If his partner was there, if he and his partner were there together, she could say, “I think we left something yesterday. My mother-in-law thinks she dropped her glasses case. Not her glasses. Just the case. It doesn’t matter. I thought I’d check.”

If he was there alone but came toward her with a blank, pleasant look, inquiring, she might need to have a less trivial reason.

“I just wanted to find out about flying lessons. My husband asked me to find out.”

If he was there alone but his look was not so blank—yet it was still necessary that something should be said—she could say, “It was so kind of you to take everybody up yesterday and they did enjoy it. I just dropped by to thank you.”

She couldn’t believe this; she couldn’t believe
it
would happen. In spite of her reading, her fantasies, the confidences of certain friends, she couldn’t believe that people sent and got such messages every day, and acted on them, making their perilous plans, moving into illicit territory (which would turn out to be shockingly like, and unlike, home).

In the years ahead, she would learn to read the signs, both at
the beginning and at the end of a love affair. She wouldn’t be so astonished at the way the skin of the moment can break open. But astonished enough that she would say one day to her grownup daughter Denise, when they were drinking wine and talking about these things, “I think the best part is always right at the beginning. At the beginning. That’s the only pure part.” “Perhaps even before the beginning,” she said. “Perhaps just when it flashes on you what’s possible. That may be the best.”

“And the first love affair? I mean the first extra love affair?” (Denise suppressing all censure.)“Is that the best, too?”

“With me, the most passionate. Also the most sordid.”

(Referring to the fact that the business was failing, that the pilot asked for, and received, some money from her; also to the grievous scenes of revelation that put an end to the affair and to her marriage, though not to his. Referring, as well, to scenes of such fusing, sundering pleasure that they left both parties flattened, and in a few cases, shedding tears. And to the very first scene, which she could replay in her mind at any time, recalling surprisingly mixed feelings of alarm and tranquillity.

The airport at about nine o’clock in the morning, the silence, sunlight, the dusty distant trees. The small white house that had obviously been hauled here from somewhere else to be the office. No curtains or blinds on its windows. But a piece of picket fence, of all things, a gate. He came out and held the gate open for her. He wore the same clothes that he had worn yesterday, the same light-colored work pants and work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She wore the same clothes that she had worn. Neither heard what the other said, or could answer in a way that made sense.

Too much ease on his part, or any sign of calculation—worse still, of triumph—would have sent her away. But he didn’t make that kind of mistake, probably wasn’t tempted to. Men who are successful with women—and he had been successful; she was to find out that he had been successful some times before, in very similar circumstances—men who are gifted in that way are not so light-minded about it as they are thought to be, and not unkind. He was resolute but seemed thoughtful, or even regretful, when he first
touched her. A calming, appreciative touch, a slowly increasing declaration, over her bare neck and shoulders, bare arms and back, lightly covered breasts and hips. He spoke to her—some intimate, serious nonsense—while she swayed back and forth in a response that this touch made just bearable.

She felt rescued, lifted, beheld, and safe.)

After dinner, they played charades. Peter was Orion. He did the second syllable by drinking from an imaginary glass, then staggering around and falling down. He was not disqualified, though it was agreed that Orion was a proper name.

“Space is Peter’s world, after all,” said Denise. Laurence and Isabel laughed. This remark was one that would be quoted from time to time in the household.

Sophie, who never understood the rules of charades—or, at least, could never keep to them—soon gave up the game, and began to read. Her book was
The Poetic Edda
, which she read every summer, but had been neglecting because of the demands of television. When she went to bed, she left it on the arm of her chair.

Isabel, picking it up before she turned out the light, read this verse:

(It is too late to talk of this now: it has been decided.)

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