Moving On (78 page)

Eleanor knew that he was in the throes of an intense disappointment. She blamed herself and was as nice as she could be. She knew he was going to make another effort and made no attempt to avoid it. They went back upstairs after supper, and when he came near her on the patio and told her again that he loved her she thought she was prepared to be kind and tolerant.

“You don’t, really,” she said. “You’ve just never known anyone like me.”

“I do, though,” he said. “I do love you.”

He was sincere. Eleanor sighed. He kissed her, trying as hard as he could. The fine clarity that had come to her in her relief began to slip away. Her feelings were a jumble, and in the jumble somewhere were all the bad feelings she thought she had thrown out. It seemed for a moment that she herself had been scattered, thrown away. She was somewhere there, if he could salvage her and put her parts together again.

Jim tried, but he couldn’t find all of her. When she ceased to feel clear and tolerant and kind she dropped into a stupor of discouragement and merely felt dull. In the dullness she let him close to her again—she had no shame in the dullness—and took his kisses leaning back against the patio wall, where anyone walking across the courtyard might have seen her. She let him kiss her as long as he wanted to, let him stroke her hair and her throat, let him move his body against hers. Once he stopped kissing her, discouraged by her discouragement.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“It’s hopeless.”

“No it isn’t.”

Eleanor smiled a little. He tried to show her it wasn’t hopeless, but she felt as heavy and sluggish as mud, and when he did something that caused her to tremble it was not the trembling of passion but the kind of motion mud makes when it is shaken. She let him move her to the bed in her bedroom, hoping he would find her. She would have welcomed the fever, but it didn’t come. Her skin might have been dead, her nerves disconnected. Every touch was flat. Sometime, somehow, she had set her brakes. Perhaps Jim could release them. She wanted him to, and he tried. He brought all his eagerness to the task, but eagerness was not sufficient. Her brakes stayed on. Whether they talked or whether they embraced the brakes were on. She would not undress. They twisted on the bed, rumpled, exhausted, separately frantic, not knowing what to do. Eleanor kept hoping for the fever long after she had ceased to expect it. Finally she despaired of it and slid off the bed to the floor. She sat with her back against the bed. Dim moonlight filled the open doors of the patio.

Jim was silent, and very depressed, she knew. Once her dress and her hair were straightened, she felt better. A little clarity came back. Once they stopped touching some of the deadness went away. She looked around at him and stretched out a hand for him to hold. He held it and looked at it in a way that amused her a little.

“You’re looking at my hand as if it held the answer to all mysteries.”

“I wish it did.”

“It’s just a woman’s hand.”

“Do you want me to go away? I mean leave the ranch?”

“No,” she said, lying. “Don’t be silly.”

But the question piqued her. “For a smart young man you ask awfully stupid questions,” she said. “It’s not really necessary to talk to women, you know. Sometimes it’s pleasant and other times it’s very stupid.”

She checked her anger with difficulty. She wanted to tell him he could have had her practically any time in the last two days. No one should be so stupid—particularly no one who had been married for almost three years.

“Maybe you ought to go back to your wife,” she said finally. “I imagine she needs you. I don’t, really.”

“I don’t know what she needs,” he said stiffly, as if offended that she would mention Patsy at such a time.

“No, and you won’t find out while you’re pursuing me,” she said. “This is my fault and I feel badly about it. This kind of fluttering around doesn’t become either one of us. The longer we wallow in it the sorrier we’ll feel for ourselves and the less we’ll like one another. I hate the whole business.”

Jim released her hand. He got off the bed and began to tuck in his shirttails. “I guess it was too much to hope for,” he said.

“That’s exactly why it didn’t happen,” Eleanor said. “You were convinced in advance it was too much to hope for. Well, it wasn’t at all. You were mistaken. I’m just as vulnerable as anyone. You shouldn’t have built me up into someone unattainable. If you hadn’t we’d have attained plenty.”

“I know,” he said. “But I know better now. Why is it too late?”

“I don’t know why. How should I know why? Please go to bed.”

He kissed her before he left, and she allowed it. When he was gone she got up, undressed, and listlessly put on her dressing gown. She turned the bed down and sat on it for a time, discouraged and dispirited, jiggling a couple of sleeping pills in her palm. It was all such a mess, and it was not finished, either. She had been stupid not to tell him to leave when he had asked if she wanted him to. He would keep at her for another day and she would reach a point of not caring and let him. It would just make things worse, but it would probably happen. She was not a terribly hard person to wear down. Just having him gone was the nicest thing she could imagine, and yet she knew she was not simply going to walk downstairs and tell him she had changed her mind, he would have to leave. Instead, she would take the sleeping pills—in a minute she would.

As she was sitting on the bed she heard a car approaching the house. It came into the circular driveway, stopped, a door slammed. Curious, she walked out on the patio and looked down. The pale moonlight shone on the long white hearse. It seemed such luck, such a miracle, that she could scarcely believe it; her legs shook a little at the thought of what would have happened if he had come an hour earlier. When she went back to the bedroom, Sonny was there. The smell of the room had changed. He sat on the bed and began to pull off his boots.

“Hi,” he said. “Never got to Flagstaff. Complications come up. How you?”

“I’m glad to see you,” she said, sitting down by him. He gave her a light kiss.

“You sound as tired as I am,” he said, peeling off his shirt. “What you been doing?”

“Oh, showing Jim the ranch.”

“Oh, yeah, Jim’s here,” he said. “Forgot. Maybe he’ll ride to L.A. with me.”

He lay down and stretched out an arm, and Eleanor lay down beside him. “Don’t wake me for breakfast,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” she said. After he was asleep she got up and put the two pills back in their bottle and closed the doors to the patio and pulled the shades so the morning sun would not wake them. Lucy would see the hearse and take care of the telephone and Jim and anyone else that needed taking care of. They could sleep.

15

“W
HAT ARE YOU DOING
? Why are you telling me this?” Patsy said, so agitated that she wanted to fling the phone down. She looked around in distraction. Davey was in his highchair making a great spectacular mess with his carrot goop. She had almost finished feeding him and was making herself a salad involving cottage cheese and black cherries when the phone rang. Jim began a confession and the evening was spoiled. She wanted to fling the phone down.

“Do you enjoy hurting me?” she asked. “Why would you tell me that, otherwise? It’s terrible of you.”

Jim was surprised. He had not expected her to be upset; he had expected her to be glad to hear what he was saying. In a way, Sonny’s arrival had been a relief to him as well as to Eleanor, though it had eliminated a tantalizing possibility. But his conscience began to hurt him and he felt an urge to call Patsy. He went into the little town near the ranch and called from a phone booth near a truck stop, so his voice was occasionally drowned out by the sound of trucks pulling away. Down the highway from him the sun was setting, but the phone booth was still hot.

“I just thought I ought to be honest,” he said. “Nothing happened. I didn’t sleep with her. I’m really sorry about it all. I guess I did have a crush on her, but it didn’t come to anything. It didn’t hurt anything.”

“What do you mean, it didn’t hurt anything?” she said. “You leave me all summer to go have a crush on another woman and then you don’t even sleep with her and you call me up when I was perfectly happy to tell me all this! It hurts everything! Now I don’t know what to do. I want to rip this phone out!”

“Don’t do that,” he said. “Why?”

“So you can’t call me and hurt me any more,” she said, beginning to cry.

“Wait,” she said. “Davey’s got carrot in his ears.” She went over and swabbed him briefly and sat him on the floor. She was crying, very agitated, her chest heaving. The receiver of the wall phone dangled. She didn’t want to pick it up. Davey eyed it hopefully, but Patsy finally picked it up.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Jim said. “I couldn’t help having the crush. What you should be glad about is that it didn’t amount to anything. I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Well, thanks, only don’t do me that kind of favors,” she said. “I can’t stand self-pity and you’re dripping with it.”

“I am not,” he said. “I just called thinking you might be lonesome. I thought you might be unhappy. Is it so bad to call?”

“I don’t know. I just hate you. It’s too bad you didn’t get to screw your aging millionairess. What are you going to do now?”

“Tonight I’m going to an amateur rodeo with Sonny. Tomorrow we’re driving to L.A.”

“Sure you are,” Patsy said. “Can I depend on that, or will you figure out some way to get left behind, so you can have another try? Better try quick, before another of her low-class boy friends comes in and beats you out.”

“Shut up,” he said, stung. “She doesn’t have low-class boy friends.”

“Ha,” Patsy said. “How do you know who she screws, you’ve only been there two days. She may screw her gardeners for all you know.”

“Shut up,” he said loudly. “I don’t like you using that kind of language anyway.”

“And you especially don’t like me using it about your fading violet,” Patsy said, the venom rising in her so rapidly that she could hardly pour it out fast enough. “I can use any word I want to. How close did you get to this prize, may I ask?”

“I’d like to brain you,” he said. “I called to be nice. I never wanted this fight.”

“I never wanted your confession, either,” she said. “I was having a pleasant supper. I didn’t need to know you had gone off to try and screw an aging heiress. If that’s the kind of husband I’ve got I’d just as soon not be reminded of it.”

“I called to tell you I love you,” Jim said. “Don’t you understand anything? I do love you. That was the whole point of the call.”

“Oh, fuck your noble motives,” she said bitterly. “Fat consolation they are. Tallulah or whoever she is wouldn’t let you screw her so you love me again. That’s music to my ears.”

“I ought to come home and beat hell out of you,” he said, not very convincingly. Her anger shook him a little.

“Oh, no, I think you ought to stay there,” she said. “You might get another chance at Tallulah. Maybe you could find a cowgirl or something while she’s busy with Sonny.”

“Come on, Patsy,” he said helplessly.

Patsy was clenching and unclenching her fists, trying to calm down. Her venom surprised her too. “Don’t Patsy me,” she said, but a little wearily. “You’ve ruined things now. I don’t know what to do.”

“I haven’t done anything,” he repeated. “I was just intrigued with her. I didn’t sleep with her.”

“That just makes it worse,” she said, all spirit running out of her. She remembered what she had been doing all afternoon.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it doesn’t make it worse. I’m going to hang up. Go on to your rodeo.”

“No, don’t hang up,” he said, frightened at the thought of the uncertainty he would be in if she hung up at such a time, in such a tone.

“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked listlessly, no longer particularly caring whether she did or didn’t.

“Because it’s not that bad,” he said. “I know it was foolish, but I do love
you
.”

She was silent. He repeated it. It sounded true. “Surely it isn’t so unforgivable,” he said.

“Oh, Jim,” she said. “Why did you go away just when we had Davey and could have been happy? We didn’t have so many problems then.”

“I didn’t know going off would make problems,” he said. “I really wanted the job.”

“Couldn’t you get out of going to California? We just get farther and farther apart this way.”

Jim didn’t know what to say. With her voice in his ear he missed her and would have liked to be in Houston; but at the same time he wanted to go to California in the morning, with Sonny in the hearse.

“No, it’s too late to get out of it,” he said. “I won’t be there long, and I won’t make any more mistakes of this kind. It’ll work out. You’ll see.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, her discouragement growing heavier. “You’re just saying what any man would say. You don’t really want to come home and do anything about us, or you would. You don’t know what to do about me, or you would. You don’t even like to think about what to do about me. Go on and have your vacation. Enjoy Disneyland. Maybe you can find an aging actress to admire.”

“Please don’t start that again.”

“A young actress then,” Patsy said. “I don’t care. Listen, I’ve got to get Davey. I’m going to hang up.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t sound that way. I’ll call you in the morning. Maybe it won’t seem so drastic then.”

“Don’t count on it not seeming drastic. Go on to your rodeo and stay away from that woman.”

Daved had scooted into the hall and was staring at a small gray cat that had appeared at the top of the landing. “Goodness, see the kitty,” she said, sniffing. She opened the door with her foot and the little cat walked in, past a startled Davey. It rubbed itself against her ankle. She picked it up and they stared eye to eye for a moment. Then she took it to the kitchen and gave it some milk. “I oughtn’t to feed you,” she said. The cat ignored her. She let it drink and took Davey to the bed. He was not happy about leaving the cat but she put him on his back and tickled him until he forgot it; he grinned and kicked happily. While he was playing with a toy giraffe Patsy began to cry again. The cat came in and jumped up on the bed. It licked its paws and watched her cry. Davey mouthed the giraffe and watched the cat, who ignored him.