Man, Woman and Child (2 page)

"Are you okay?"

"Uh—sure," said Bob. "What makes you ask?"

"You look a little pale."

"Just academic pallor. Two days on the Cape and I'll be absolutely golden."

"Still, promise me you won't do any work tonight."

"Okay," said Bob. (As if he would be able to concentrate on anything.) "Have you got any pages from the Press?"

"Nothing urgent. I'm still wading through that Russo-Chinese diplomatic thing. I tell you, for a university professor, Reinhardt's prose has more starch than a laundry."

"Honey, if all authors wrote like Churchill, you'd

be unemployed. But anyway, let's neither of us work tonight."

'Tine. Whafd you have in mind?" Her green eyes were shining. His heart ached at the thought of what she would have to hear.

"I love you/' he said.

''Good. But in the meanwhile set the table, huh?"

''Daddy, when you were my age, how much television could you watch?" Paula glanced at Bob seductively.

"When I was your age, there was no TV."

"Are you that old?"

"What your father means," said Sheila, glossing Bob's hyperbole, "was he knew that reading books was more rewarding."

"We read books in school," said Paula. "Can I watch the tube now?"

"If all your homework's done," said Sheila.

"What's on?" said Bob, dutifully taking an interest in his offsprings' cultural activities.

''Scott and Zeldd/' Jessica replied.

"Well, that sounds vaguely educational. On PBS?"

"Oh, Daddy," Jessie said with much exasperation, "don't you know anything?"

"Listen, I've read every book Scott wrote, if you don't mind."

''Scott and Zelda is a series," Paula said disgustedly.

"About a dog from Mars and a girl from California," Jessie added.

"Fascinating. Which is which?" said Bob.

"Oh, Daddy, even Mom knows that."

Sheila looked at him with love. We poor benighted souls, she thought. We aren't with it anymore.

"Honey, go and view with them. Til clear the table."

"No," said Bob. "FU clear it. You go watch Scott the Wonder Dog."

"Dad, Zelda is the dog," Paula frowned, and dashed off to the living room.

"Coming, Mom?" said Jessie.

"I wouldn't miss it for anything," said Sheila as she watched her tired husband piling up the dinner dishes. "See you later, Robert"

"Yeah."

He waited until he was sure the girls were fast asleep. Sheila was curled up on the couch with a "ridiculously filthy" Hollywood novel. Jean-Pierre Rampal was playing Vivaldi, and Bob was pretending to read The New Republic. Tne tension was unbearable.

"Want a drink, hon?"

"No, thanks," said Sheila, looking up.

"Mind if I do?"

"Since when do you have to ask permission?" She went back to her novel.

"Incredible," she murmured. "You won't believe how they do it in this chapter. Right in the middle of Rodeo Drive."

Oh, God, he thought, how can I do this?

"Hey—can we talk for a second?"

He was now sitting a few feet from her, an unusually tall Scotch in his hand.

"Sure. Is something wrong?"

"Well, sort of. Yes."

He lowered his head. Sheila was suddenly frightened. She put her book down and sat upright.

"Bob, you aren't sick, are you?"

No, I just feel that way, he thought. But shook his head. "Honey, I gotta talk to you about something."

Sheila Beckwith felt a sudden shortening of breath. How many of her friends had heard their husbands open conversations with preambles just hke this? We have to talk. About our marriage. And from the grim expression on Bob's face, she feared that he, too, was about to say, '*It isn't working anymore."

''Bob," she said with candor, "something in your voice scares me. Have I done anything?"

''No, no. It's me. I've done it."

"What?"

"Oh, Jesus, you don't know how hard this is to say."

"Please, Robert, the suspense is killing me."

Bob took a breath. He was shaking.

"Sheila, remember when you were pregnant with Paula?"

"Yes?"

"I had to fly to Europe—Montpellier—to give that paper...."

"And . .. ?"

A pause.

"I had an affair." He said it as quickly as he could. Like ripping off a bandage fast, to cause less pain.

Sheila's face went ashen.

"No," she said, shaking her head violently as if to drive out what she had just heard. "This is some terrible joke." She looked at him for reassurance. "Isn't it?"

"No. It's true," he said tonelessly. "I—I'm sorry."

"Who?" she asked.

"Nobody," he replied. "Nobody special."

"W/io, Robert?"

"Her—her name was Nicole Gu6rin. She was a doctor." Why does she want to hear these details? he wondered.

''And how long did it last?"

"'Two, three days."

"Which—two days or three days? I want to Icnow, dammit."

"Three days," he said.

""And three nights," she added.

"Yes," he said. "Does all this matter?"

"Everything matters," Sheila answered, and then said to herself, "Jesus."

He watched her fight to keep control. This was worse than he had even imagined. Then she looked at him and asked:

"And you kept quiet all these years?"

He nodded.

"Why didn't you ever tell me? I thought our marriage was based on total honesty. Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

"I was going to," he said weakly.

"But...?"

"I—I was waiting for the right moment" He knew it sounded absurd, but it was true. He had really wanted to tell her. But not like this.

"And ten years was the right moment?" she said sardonically. "No doubt you thought it would be easier. On whom?"

"I—I didn't want to hurt you," he said, knowing any answer would be futile. And then he added, "Sheila, if it's any consolation, that's the only time. I swear. It was the only time."

"No," she answered softly, "it isn't consolation. Once is more than never."

She bit her lip to hold back tears. And he had more to say.

"Sheila, that was so damn long ago. I had to tell you now because—"

"—you're going off with her?" She couldn't help

it. Half a dozen friends had lived (or rather died) through this scenario.

''No, Sheila, no. I haven't seen her for ten years. I mean—" And then he blurted out, ''She's dead."

To Sheila's shock and hurt was added consternation.

"For God's salce, Bob, why are you telling me all this? Am I supposed to write someone a letter of condolence? Have you lost your mind?"

I only wish, thought Bob.

"Sheila, I am telling you because she had a child."

"And we have two—so goddamn what?"

Bob hesitated. And then whispered, barely audibly, "He's mine. The boy is mine."

She stared in disbelief. "Oh, no, it can't be true." Her eyes were pleading for denial.

Bob nodded sadly: Yes, it's true.

And then he told her everything. The strike in France. The meeting with Nicole. Their brief affair. Then this afternoon. The call from Louis. And the boy. The problem with the boy.

"I really didn't know about it, Sheila. Please believe me."

"Why? Why should I believe anything you tell me now?"

He couldn't answer that.

In the awful silence that ensued. Bob suddenly remembered what he'd long ago confessed to her— so unimportant then. That he would like to be the father of a boy.

"J wouldnt mind a little quarterback.'*

*'And what if ifs another girl?''

*'Well, then well keep trying. Isnt that the best partr

At the time they laughed. The "quarterback," of course, was Paula. And the operation at her birth made further children impossible. Sheila felt "un-

lovable" for many months. But Bob kept reassuring her, till gradually she once again believed that what they shared was far too strong for anything to change. They healed into an even tighter bond.

Until tonight, which was a requiem for trust. Now everything was a potential source of pain.

"Sheila, listen-"

''No. I've heard enough.''

She rose and fled into the kitchen. Bob hesitated for a moment, then went after her. She was seated at the table, sobbing.

''Can I get you anything to drink?"

"No. Go to hell."

He reached out to stroke her blond hair. She moved away.

"Sheila, please . . ."

"Bob, why'd you have to tell me. Why?"

"Because I don't know what to do." And because I somehow thought you'd help. And I'm a selfish bastard.

He sat down across the table and looked at her.

"Sheila, please." He wanted her to talk. Say anything to end the ache of silence.

"You can't know how it hurts," she said. "Oh, God, I trusted you. I trusted—" She broke down again.

He longed to embrace her, make it better. But he was afraid.

"You can't forget so many happy years. . . ."

She looked at him and gave a tiny wistful smile.

"But that's just it," she said. "I've just discovered that they weren't happy."

"Sheila, no!"

"You lied to me!" she shouted.

"Please, honey. I'll do anything to make it right." You can t.

He was scared by the finality of her statement.

"You don't mean that you want to split. . . ."

She hesitated.

''Robert, I don't have the strength right now. For anything."

She rose from the table.

"Fm gonna take a pill, Bob. You could do me a big favor."

''Anything/' he said with desperate eagerness.

"Sleep in your study, please," she said.

Who died last night, for heaven's sake?"

For once the gloomy philosopher Jessica had been wiser than she knew. They were in the kitchen eating—or in Jessie's case, dieting. She was ingesting Special K and half-and-half (half skim milk, half water), and commenting on the familial ambience.

''Eat your breakfast, Jessie/' Sheila ordered, trying to feign normalcy.

"You look awful, Dad/' said Paula with solicitude.

''I worked late," he answered, hoping that his junior wife would not detect that he had spent a sleepless night in his study.

'Tou work much too hard," said Paula.

*'He wants to be world renowned," said Jessie to her sister.

"But he is already," Paula answered, then turning to Sheila for affirmation, "Right, Mom? Isn't Dad already famous everywhere?"

"Yes," said Sheila, "absolutely everywhere."

"Except in Stockholm," Jessie interposed, short-circuiting the flow of flattery.

"What's there?" asked Paula, taking Jessie's bait

"The Nobel Prize, you idiot. Your father wants a

19

free trip to Sweden and a better table at the faculty club. Dig now, birdbrain?"

''Jessie/' Sheila remonstrated, "don't insult your sister."

''Mother, her existence is an insult to any person of normal intelligence."

"Want this peanut butter in your face?" asked Paula.

"Stop it, both of you," said Bob. "The Nobel committee takes family manners into consideration."

"Oh, American men," sighed Jessica, somewhat out of the blue.

"I beg your pardon, Jessie," Sheila said.

"American men are absolutely driven by ambition. It's what makes them so provincial."

"Do you mind?" said Bob to Jessica.

"I was just being sociological. Father."

Paula stepped in front of Bob, to shield him from the verbal bullets of his hostile elder daughter.

"Dad, she likes to dump on you. But when you're not around she brags like anything. Just to impress the boys."

"I don't!" objected Jessica, her face now crimson with embarrassed indignation.

For a moment sibling rivalry allowed Bob and Sheila to forget their marital abrasions. They smiled at one another. Then they both remembered that this wasn't quite a normal morning. They withdrew their smiles—and hoped the children didn't notice.

"You drop his name to all the jockos on the football team," said Paula, pointing an accusatory finger at her sister.

''Really, Paula, you are fatuous," said Jessica, more than a bit discomfited.

"I'm not. I'm just as thin as you are, Jessie."

"Children, please," snapped Sheila, losing patience.

"There is only one child in this house," retorted Jessica, not noticing her mother's irritated mood.

"Ladies," interrupted Bob, "Fm driving both of you to catch the bus. Immediately." He gave a worried glance at Sheila.

"Okay," said Paula, scurrying to get her books.

"Fd like to go on record," Jessie Beckwith stated. "Fm against forced busing."

"But Jessie," said Bob, "this is to your own school."

Jessica looked at him. It was clear he hated her. Had no respect for her convictions. Indeed, she had lately come to suspect that he wasn't even her real father. Someday, hopefully. Sheila would confide to her that she and Sartre ...

"Jessie, hurry up I"

But right now Sheila was still on his side.

He hovered by the door while the girls got ready.

"Uh—will you still be here when I get back?" he asked Sheila uneasily.

"I don't know," she answered.

She was still there.

"Are you leaving?"

"No."

"I mean, to work."

"No. I called the Press and said Fd work at home."

When he returned from ferrying the girls, she was still seated at the kitchen table, staring at her own reflection in a coffee cup.

I did this to her, he told himself, and was filled with self-loathing. He sat down across from her. She wouldn't start the conversation, so, after a long silence, he said:

"Sheila, how can I make it up to you?" She slowly raised her head and looked at him. ''I don't think you can," she said. *Tou mean we're gonna bust up over this?" he asked.

**I don't know," she said. "I don't know anything. I just..."

''What?"

"I just wish I had it in me to really hurt you back for this. I wish I could at least express my anger. . . ." Her voice trailed off. She had almost let slip that she was still, despite it all, in love with him. But that at least she would withhold.