The Self-Enchanted (11 page)

“It looks as though marriage agreed with you,” was all he said, probably because it looked nothing of the sort.

“It does.” She was amazed how easy it was to talk, while she wondered what sort of trap Christopher had laid. Curt had changed horribly. It seemed as though Christopher had sucked the soul out of him, and she wondered if she, too, would look that way in time.

“Curt’s staying overnight,” said Christopher. “He came down to show me some plans.”

“That’s nice,” said Sally, and somehow they got through the rest of it. It wasn’t until after dinner that Christopher would leave them alone.

Once he was gone, Curt twiddled nervously with his glass. “Are you happy?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, almost automatically. He looked at her shrewdly, and she realized that she had been wrong about him, and felt sorry for him. She should not have said anything about him to Christopher. She would never say anything about anybody to Christopher again. “I owe you an apology,” she said impulsively. He moved
uneasily
in his chair.

“I’ve made up my mind,” he said angrily. “About a lot of things.” He scowled. “If you ever need help, get in touch with me, not that I know where I’ll be.” He broke off abruptly and Christopher came back into the room,
walking softly. He offered them another drink, and as the evening went on, drank more and more feverishly, forcing Curt to drink too. He knew Curt could not hold his liquor. She eyed the clock set into the wall over the mantelpiece, and realized that they could not get away from each other for at least an hour yet.

Unexpectedly Curt, holding his half-empty drink, seemed to straighten up.

Christopher had been talking about the blueprints. He wanted certain revisions.

“I don’t think you’ll get them,” said Curt.

“What did you say?”

“I said I don’t think you’ll get them. I’m through.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Sure I’m drunk. But I’m through too.”

Christopher eyed him with satisfaction. “You might have trouble getting another job.”

“You haven’t that much power, God damn you.” Curt’s voice was shaky.

“There’s no need to swear in front of my wife.”

“Probably she feels like swearing herself.” He rose
uncertainly
. “I know a lot more about you than I did,” he said. “A lot more.” He got up and weaved out of the room, and they both watched him go.

“Ungrateful bastard,” snorted Christopher, but he looked a little uncertain of himself.

“You planned that,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You just wanted to show off,” she said. “The big virile man with his contented wife. It was pretty cheap.”

“Shut up!”

“I’m going to bed,” said Sally. “And I’ll lock my
door.” She stood up, feeling dizzy, obscurely worried about Curt.

“You wore that dress out of spite, didn’t you?”

“I wore it because I liked it.”

“What did he say to you when I was away?” he asked suddenly.

She almost wanted to laugh. “Nothing,” she said. She walked out and left him. She locked her door and lay down on the bed without undressing. He must not make of her what he had made of Curt. Yet in the darknesss he was so desperate that she pitied him. Their life had two sides. At last, because she had had too much to drink, she cried herself to sleep.

She woke suddenly, and heard the handle of her door turning softly.

“Let me in,” she heard Christopher whisper. She
pretended
she was still asleep. “For God’s sake let me in.” He began to pound on the door.

“No,” she called.

There was no answer to that, and she heard his body crash against the door. Again and again he did it
.

“You goddam bitch,” he screamed. “For the love of God let me in.” There was terror in his voice, and that made her afraid. “Sally!” he called. “You must understand.” Again he tried to force the door, but Curt had built the house well. It shuddered, but it did not give way. Then she knew that he had gone back to his room. She could not sleep. She lay rigid, gazing at the shadows in the room. There was only one thing for her to do, and that she would do. She would never give him a child.

S
he always locked her door now, and she was really afraid. But time went on, and nothing happened. That something would happen, she was sure. She even wanted to force it. Anything would be better than the way they lived now. But of what that thing might be she had no idea. He had got rid of her father, he had got rid of his mother, and she did not like to think about that. And she had no refuge. There was nowhere for her to go.

Soon it would be spring. The snows were infrequent now. So when Christopher suggested that they go for an outing, even though he had been more than usually moody of late, she was pleased. He asked her at breakfast. She found it
curiously easy to pour his coffee, pass him the sugar, and by concentrating on details, manage to keep her nerves under control. In the daytime she could control him very well. But only in the daytime.

“We should go some place,” he said. “I thought we might go to Mono Lake.”

“Why Mono?”

“Why not?” he asked. “If you think you’d like the trip.”

“Why on earth shouldn’t I?” she demanded, but she was pleased.

“Then we’ll go,” he said, “You’d better change into something warm. It’s usually pretty nippy down there. But then you’d know more about that than I would.”

They left the valley in silence. They went out by the north end, by Grant Lake, which was not frozen over, but very cold. They passed the shed which contained his plane, and came out into the white and granite
countryside
. Even the far desert was flecked with patches of late snow. Mono Lake lay to their right, a great, flat, lifeless pewter disk, reflecting only the blurred shadows of an occasional cloud. The shore was a tangle of dead branches rimed with heavy white salt. On one side was a cliff of black lava, in the centre, two islands, one like a cardinal’s hat of diseased black stone, the other barren and bleak. The lake was capable of ferocious and unexpected storms, no matter how quiet it might seem from the beach. Near the shore floated a motor launch, with a dinghy riding
uneasily
at its stern. She had not seen it
before and she did not trust Christopher.

“I had it sent down from Reno,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to take a trip on this lake.”

“It’s dangerous. Nobody goes on it but the shrimp boat.”

“We’ll be safe enough,” he said. He clambered aboard the launch and beckoned to her to follow him. She did so, with a feeling that it was the wrong thing to do.

He got the engine to kick over and they began to move, the dinghy streaming out behind them at the end of its rope. She had never been in a large motor-boat before. The water was choppier than it had looked from the shore.

“Are we going to one of the islands?” she asked.

“Perhaps.”

He went far out. Even from the shore the lake was
immense
, but from the launch it seemed endless. On every side of them stretched the purplish grey and slimy water. The launch had no awning and the hard March sun beat down on them. There was no wind.

The launch moved more cautiously. They were several miles out, and she wondered what would happen to them if anything went wrong with the engine. She leaned back against the cushions of the bench and tried to tell herself that nothing was wrong, but the hostile place that was Mono scared her. The motion of the boat made her feel slightly ill. She shut her eyes and told herself that there was nothing to be afraid of. Then, abruptly, the engine stopped and they were becalmed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked suddenly.

“Nothing. I cut the engine. I thought we’d drift for a while and take in the view.”

She looked around her. From the launch, and the rail was not far above the water, the lake was terrifying. They were, she noticed, about half a mile from one of the islands. Christopher leaned against the dashboard, his hands folded in front of him, staring at her and smiling to himself. But his eyes were hard.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing. I think we should have a talk, that’s all. I think you’re afraid of me.”

“You know why you married me, I know why I
married
you,” she said, but even to herself her voice was shrill. “No woman would love you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You hate me the way you hated Curt,” she said.
“Well, you’re not going to do to me what you did to Curt.”

“I did nothing to Curt. Curt is a weak fool.”

“That doesn’t make you any stronger.”

“It isn’t a good idea to turn on me,” he said. “Not in your position. And I don’t care about your pride: pride isn’t something you can afford. I didn’t come to talk to you about that.”

“And what did you want to talk about?”

He was silent for a minute. “You’re cheating me,” he said at last. “I want a child.”

“I’m not a brood sow for any man. You won’t have a child by me, or anybody else. And if it’s a legitimate child you want I won’t divorce you.”

“I don’t want to divorce you,” he said, staring at her open-mouthed. “You hate me, don’t you,” he went on slowly. “I didn’t realize that. Why on earth should you?’

“Because you’re too weak to stand anybody strong around you.”

That made him angry. “How dare you speak to me like that.”

“Do you know what I did?” she asked. “I went to a doctor in Reno, and of course I’m not pregnant. Why should I be? Do you think I want your child?”

He began to laugh at her. “You will have, though,” he said.

She felt cold, for a storm-cloud had moved over the lake from the mountains. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that unless you do as I say, I’ll dump you into the dinghy and leave you.”

She did not answer, and he stood up in the boat waving
what she recognized as a yellow plastic diaphragm
inserter
. “You’re careless,” he said. “You left it in the bathroom this morning. So I thought we’d have a little trip.” He bit his lip, coming towards her, and she backed away, until she was up against the cushioned seat. He made a grab for her. She tried to get away, but he was stronger than she had thought. She could not stand him to touch her. She kicked him in the stomach. He let go of her, doubling over with a yell. She lost her footing and fell into the lake.

When she came to the surface she was south of the launch. She swam back to it, but he pried her hand loose from the rail and started the engine. “Spend some time in this sun and perhaps you’ll change your mind,” he shouted, and cast off the dinghy.

The launch drew away.

The water buoyed her up. She got to the dinghy and after three or four attempts scrambled into it. It was
half-filled
with the same slimy water. She tried to bail it out with her hands.

The water shrivelled her fingers at the tips making them seem bloodless. Whatever salt was in the water had coated her body with a stifling white rime. She had cut her fingers falling out of the launch, and the salt bit into the wounds fiercely. Looking up, she saw that the motor launch had been circling around her. She stood up and screamed for help, but the launch turned sharply and made for shore. It was soon an indistinct speck, but the wake of its passage badly rocked the dinghy.

Looking the other way, drawn by a change in the
atmosphere
, she saw the thunder head moving swiftly over the lake. It was almost above her now, and she could see the
heavy rain streaking down out of it. She had heard about the dangers of that rain.

The surface of the lake began to heave, and before she could move, the storm was upon her in great driving gusts of ice and hail. The water was peppered with it, as though machine-gunned. She could scarcely keep her eyes open and her hands turned to ice
.

More terrifying still was the shriek and roar of the wind. The boat dipped and plunged. If she was to live, something must be done and done quickly.

The launch had stopped close to one of the islands.
Before
the storm closed in she had caught a glimpse of it through the curtains of hail. It was invisible now, but she thought that she might be able to make it.

There were oars in the boat. She undid them, the soaked rope lashing her hands, and managed to get them in the locks. She knew she must bear to the right and she tried to do so. She could see nothing. Once she thought she heard the drone of an engine, but it was only a trick of the storm. What she could see of the water made her cower in the boat, for it was rising faster, in
unpredictable
waves. But she had no time to think of anything. She could only row. Her arms ached and the skin of her hands was scraped raw. A great welt rose between her palms, and she could feel the lymph run over her fingers. The hail hit the raw flesh and made her scream with pain. She knew that if she stopped she was lost.

The water tugged at the boat. She could not forget stories she had heard about that water: how, in winter, waves rose in its centre, invisible from shore, and how once a dead body had been found there, not bloated, but shrivelled up by the action of the salts.

She could feel her body slackening, but drove herself on. She did not know how long she had been rowing. Perhaps for an hour. Perhaps for longer. There was no let up in the storm. She could feel the wind tugging at the boat, and a pull sideways that made her realize that she had got into one of the circular currents round the island. Sobbing, she tried to pull harder at the oars.” She closed her eyes, but did not dare to become unconscious. She bit her arms to keep herself awake, and could taste her own blood. A wave splashed into the boat and ran eagerly over her feet. She shrank from it, tugging at the oars.

At last she heard something scrape against the bottom of the boat, and knew that she was almost safe, unless it was a submerged rock. She exerted her last strength, and felt the dinghy wedge between two rocks and jam firm. Then she lost consciousness, despite herself.

She came to in darkness. The hail was still falling, but less savagely, and she was chattering with cold. She could not move her arms and legs. The storm had diminished and a little behind her she could see the shadowy outline of land. She had reached the island, but was too exhausted to care. Yet she had to move or else freeze to death, so she managed to pull herself to the edge of the boat and let herself down into the water. The salt rasped her torn body. She struggled and fell all the way in. The water came to her armpits, and she threw herself forward, the volcanic rock bottom cutting her feet. She somehow made the ten feet to shore and flung herself up against the edge of rock, painfully crawling to safety and to land.

There she lost consciousness again. When she came to for the second time she realized
that the storm had lifted.
She turned over, lying on her back, trying to stop the awful chattering of her teeth. The night sky was dark blue, with every star clear and distinct above the storm.

She knew that she must try to move, but she could not, and as she tried, fell faint. Then she was roused. She heard voices, or thought she heard them, and struggled up from pain. It was still night, but now the stars were paler in the sky. She could not rise to help herself. A voice told her to lie still.

She felt herself lifted up. They were carrying her down towards the water. Her body was burning up and she could not think. She was lowered into a boat, and then, what seemed ages later, was lifted out of it again. She was wrapped in a blanket and something held her down. Much later, Christopher was beside her. He was saying
something
she could not hear and his face was pale. She did not understand. It could not be Christopher. Much later still, she tried to open her eyes, and realized that they were open, and that she could not see. She heard the engine of a car starting, and then she gave up trying to fight off darkness and knew nothing more.