SHE WAS AWAKE, SUDDENLY, in the middle of the night, conscious of where she was and remembering why. It was not such a horror as she expected. Merciful oblivion had eluded her, but sleep brought on a condition in which she could at least attempt some kind of coming to terms. It was a curious thing, a small thing — vast hopelessness might descend again by morning, but at that moment in the middle of the night, lying in the strange room, the covers bunched up round her legs and the wet-sheep smell of mattress ticking filling her head, she could look back on the evening and see where she had been. It was not pretty to watch, but there was no compulsion to turn and run. The way she had on the day before when she had seen the small dog, very much like their own but of no particular distinction otherwise, stand trembling and terrified as an absurd, high-fendered Model-A Ford bore down. It was such a comic scene, and so protracted — the old car advancing on the dog, and the dog so clumsy and struggling like an ancient water bird grown too large in evolution for flight — that it did not seem any harm could come of it. Even at the moment when the dog ducked under the front bumper only to raise its head again and strike out at the machine passing over, and the next second with the dog tumbling along beneath the car, fighting back, furious and uncomprehending — she could not believe any violence had been visited. It was all so ridiculous and … slow motion. It was not until the dog was released from the infernal thing, dazed and bleeding and staggering toward her, gaining strength and screaming horribly and snapping at its tortured loins, that she was able to grasp what had happened and move herself toward the animal. When she reached it, remembering all the warnings from her girlhood about keeping her distance, the dog was stretched out on the sidewalk, stiff and unmoving and open-eyed. Then she had turned and run; only a few quick clumsy steps, staggering in the high heels, but it seemed she had covered half the block before she turned to look again as the old woman driver of the Model-A stood on the running board and stared from the other end of the street. Then she had walked on, steadying herself, not even breathing hard.
So now she could look back at this last accident earlier in the evening. Perhaps she could retrace her steps and try to help or at least make a prayer as the two of them expired, gasping for air.
Neil would be asking the same question. Or had he even heard the wild cry in the night? Was it all in her mind — some passioned whoop advancing out of the dark fields, ringing inside her head? Perhaps it was she, tipsy all evening and half incoherent in his arms. It doesn’t matter — Andy, my friend, you mind not mattering? My mind over matter. Irrelevant is what it is — but so awfully damned relevant is what I am and whether the signal came out of me loud and clear. Look Neil honey you just don’t pay any attention to those sound effects … But he heard, I know he heard, and he’s always been inclined to take things so serious. Oh goddam the both of us, why can’t we keep the faith? Alas a trembling takes me … Who said that? Who got taken by all that trembling? John Tom and his inevitable seizures: the Abominable Bookman. The both of us, shaking all over. He kept his faith one way or another. What were the lines …? If ever any beauty … No. That was Neil. Sweet dear Neil and our dear sweet love for one another. Like eating one’s young. If ever any beauty I did see, which I desir’d and got, ’twas but a dream of thee … Was there ever a love, either too much or too little, that wasn’t corrupted by sentiment? And possession? It would have to be mystical. Or worse, a mere benignancy. Philanthropists! Why can’t you charitable souls leave me alone — the both of you — and try to do it the right way for a change. By not overdoing it, I mean. I wanted some privacy and the two of you went and overdid it. I remember being wonderfully serene and self-contained at first … but then there was so much to tell about later and you’d both gone over the hill. I told some others. Or tried to tell them as best I could, struck dumb and inarticulate, using the sign language one of you Eagle Scouts had taught me years before. I wonder if they got the message? Any of them … Any of the messages. I thought the visiting fireman had, that actor, the aging matinee idol with the changing accents: Oxford and Beacon Hill and the Virginia horse country. But he didn’t get the message. I thought he had. I got his all right. Quite the most strenuous good time I’ve had in years … My manhood stands in salute! Smutty postcards. He missed the point entirely. I ought to tell Neil now. He might listen, the way he was in that ancient vale miles and miles ago when I hadn’t really much to say. I could tell him now, I think I could, I’d do my best, I’ll go to him now and try …
She pulled herself from the bed and slipped on the gown she had dropped in her flight down the hall. She walked barefoot and shaking into the other room. There was only the empty bed; the sheets weren’t even warm. How quickly these enthusiasms cool and expire! She inspected all the ground-floor rooms and finally looked out the front door and saw that the roadster was gone …
Later, in the guest bed, she lay quietly waiting for sleep, waiting and coming wider and wider awake. She thought about a tranquilizer, but then reminded herself that the effect was cumulative, building up over the days, and that the condition it brought on was not so much blessedness as a mere sapping up of nervous energy. She took three aspirin instead and lay there waiting for them to work inside her. In the last stages, just before sleep, she was dimly aware of Neil’s footsteps in the hall, but she could not get the words formed on her lips to call out, and she had nearly forgotten what it was she had to tell.
He did not undress, but loosened a button and half unzipped the fly on his Bermuda shorts before lowering himself onto the bed. He did not think much about her; those few thoughts that came through were muddled and confused by the re-creation of emotion, or what remained of emotion, of the gorgeous feeling evoked from his ruminations on the intramural field. What was it he had lost? Beauty, or the illusion of beauty, or the illusion of loss. Real or imagined — that was of no importance. What counted most was the sense of loss, a value collapsed or in imminent danger of collapse. Those decaying timbers underneath. How had he let it happen?
He ought not be a politician, he told himself. Nice line of work but requiring a vision … a dedication, a certainty of belief in what one is doing. He’d had it once; the trouble was, all those sturdy affirmations began to dissolve. Right before the eyes … Front of my eyes? Perhaps a little left of center. You’d had it once, I do believe you did, but you just stopped believing … Stopped it altogether …
I remember once oh boy you had it, as singleminded and certain and unremittingly earnest as the best of them. Those old pols. That the way the old pol pounces? Old pols! Why is it we have to be so all-fired sure of ourselves? Or at least make like. How come I got the thing dumped on me just now of all times, of all ages, my spiritual prepubescence, when those wondrous self-righteous juices have temporarily ceased pulsing, or gone to vinegar, and I stand here waiting for wisdom or meaning or sweet bliss? They got me at this difficult age — too old and whiskery for playclothes and not yet grown tall enough for cufflinks and striped pants. I lost that vision, that monumental sustaining self-assurance. Just the illusion would be a comfort — perhaps that’s what old Arthur Fenstemaker’s got himself so high on. The real or the imagined, he’s got it, got hold of it good, they all have, all the great ones, like Stanley says, pushed along by that vision, like artists. But those artists are indulged and almost encouraged in their weakness. Because they got the poetic vision. What the hell! They got a different kind? They hold a monopoly or something? Picture an old pol revealing his frailty. Unthinkable. No prayer-meeting confessions please. Get up there like a man and tell ’em how it is you got the cure for all those ills …
If I could just see this script old Stanley wrote …
Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll bear with me a moment — ten years or so would do nicely — while I grope around in the shadows for a new fuse. Around here backstage. That great hot light in my head seems to have gone dark. Got a match? Perhaps I can scrounge around in these perfumed sheets till dawn and then I’ll set us back on course. Of course! The one my John Tom charted … I know it well, my friends, and him too, that happy navigator. Never a need to spit into the wind with him around. But who the devil got us into these latitudes in the dead of night? Man the boats!
Those two fellows who knew the way seem to have perished at sea, in those sweet-smelling bedsheets … You see?
There was this nice lady on board for a time, and she knew the way partly, but the women and children went first and there’s no telling where they’re drifted now. Who knows? If I could read that script I just might walk on the goddam water. I did it once before. That women and those children might be just over the next swell … And of course and perhaps and in any event, all of us and any number of scripts should be visible in the first light of the dawn …