WHEN FLETCHER WOKE THE NEXT MORNING HIS head was clear, his temper even. His was not at all the mood of a man who has gone through a crisis. Incidents of the previous day returned in sharp focus: his blindly raging departure, horns bleating on the clogged highway, the sudden wind, an angry ocean, bright flags of bathing suits moving on the beach, lithe boys riding the waves; a world beyond his lonely pride. He had stood upon a bluff and watched the ocean hurl itself in senseless fury against the rocks. Sea birds had whirled above him in great arcs, dived into the water, rode back to shore like surf boys upon the foam. The air had a tang both sweet and salty that brought back pleasing memories of Coney Island, where he had first smelled the sea. Clouds hung low but the sun, fallen behind the western horizon, had tinted the sea with the gray-blue and rose-mauve of a dove’s breast. The ocean took on a purple hue.
The colors of earth had never concerned Fletcher. His mind had always been fixed upon more immediate and personal matters. Were these, the wind and salt, changing colors, a charge of vitality, and the swift running of blood enough to keep a man alive? Five steps on the lonely bluff and it would all have been over. They would have found a body waterlogged and torn among the rocks.
The sky darkened, clouds turned leaden-blue, spume glowed white at the ocean’s border. Fletcher had no wish to take the five steps. Men will themselves to death when the future holds no hope. For the first time since he had lost his voice, Fletcher’s life promised power and drama. His circle was small, limited to three dependents, but his decision and activities could shape their future lives.
After a long drive in the windy night he came home, still unsure of his strategy with Elaine. She was not the first wife who had committed infidelity nor was he the world’s first cuckold. He had lived for almost three years without a larynx. Compared with this, the loss of his so-called honor was a small thing. But he could not show that he condoned the sin by greeting her with open arms. A faithless wife deserved a sleepless night.
On the table beside his bed Elaine had left the usual two sleeping pills. In the morning they still lay there, and his first act was to add them to the hoard in the vial he kept hidden in the riding boot. The house was very quiet. Elaine had not stirred herself to make his breakfast. He would show her that he could get along very well without her. He made a pot of coffee, toasted bread, cut a melon, fried two eggs. His hunger was not appeased, and he fried a third egg. In the morning paper he read one paragraph about foreign loans, half a column about abandoned twins, a caption under the picture of a squirrel mother who had adopted an orphaned baby mouse, an editorial on the threat of Communism, the revelations of a columnist critical of the administration, and the meditations of a columnist who approved. Over a garish two-page advertisement of startling price cuts on electric appliances, he saw Elaine come into the kitchen.
They faced each other for a long moment. Elaine did not look well. Her ivory flesh had yellowed like meerschaum, her eyes were sunk into muddy pools. He wished her a good morning.
“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” She was cool in asking a question which had been the day’s vital beginning since the only purpose of Fletcher’s days had become the preparation for his night’s slumber. He answered with a grunt. It would not do to let her know he had enjoyed a good night’s rest.
“I had an awful night,” she said; “didn’t get to sleep until almost four o’clock. That’s why I’m late. Oh, Fletch, you had to get your own breakfast. I’m so sorry.”
She had said she was sorry when she confessed infidelity. Fletcher did not mention this. Until he had decided how to act toward her, the subject was better untouched. It shocked him to discover that he was moved by her wan look. The eloquent eyes showed the need of consolation. He had only to mention forgiveness to get his gay and loving girl back again.
“Would you like to go someplace today, Fletch? Dorine’s coming.”
The cleaning woman drove up in an ancient Cadillac. She was a lean, lively little creature with enormous energy and an overflowing heart. Among her numerous relations, friends, and employers she had known many fascinating maladies but none to equal poor Mr. Strode’s affliction. She always spoke to him in a loud, compassionate voice as though he were deaf. Before she reached the kitchen door he had retreated to his den.
At his desk his first act each day was to turn the page of his desk calendar. Each page was divided into hours, every hour into fifteen-minute spaces that awaited notations of a busy man’s appointments. The sterility of these spaces irritated Fletcher but he could not throw away the calendar which, bound in real leather stamped with his name, was the annual gift of his insurance agent. Today, importantly, two items appeared. The first reminded him to instruct his New York broker to report on the advisability of selling a thousand shares of a certain stock, which would bring him a handsome profit, enough to cover the down payment on that house Don and Cindy wanted so badly.
He heard their voices in the kitchen. How happy they would be if he summoned them to say that he had decided to let them have the money. He hesitated, not sure that he wanted to abet the foolhardy venture. It was not that he minded losing the sum so much as the prudence of a lender who could see nothing ahead but further indebtedness. His eyes were drawn to the picture of Cindy as a little girl. The face was tender, trusting, and vulnerable. He remembered the soapy smell of her youthful kisses. If only that husband of hers were not so smooth and lordly, so firm in his belief that the world owed him a living. At Don’s age Fletcher Strode had supported a family and fought in a war. How would this soft generation sustain itself during a depression?
Cindy and Don went to the garage and got into the Jaguar. There was still time to summon them with the news that he would write a check for the thousand that would put the house in escrow, and when that was completed, let them have another four thousand. Why not? He could, if he wished, finance the deal, keep his daughter’s husband from asking help of Nan Burke’s father.
He saw them go off in the Jaguar. This gave him more time to consider the decision. For a few more hours his power was secure. He felt strong and independent, a man who operated with firmness and decision. Instead of asking Elaine to talk on the long-distance telephone to his broker, he wrote out a long telegram, decided to drive down to the Western Union office with it. On the way out he passed her in the hall and slapped her seat indulgently.
Her spirits rose. “Mr. Strode’s in an awfully good mood this morning,” she told the cleaning woman. “He ate an enormous breakfast.”
“Let’s hope it lasts. With the afflicted you can never be sure.” While they cleaned Fletcher’s closet, Dorine told Mrs. Strode about a lady she had worked for on alternate Thursdays. “Her son had a mental condition. Sometimes he was as gentle as a lamb, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. But you never could tell. He’d get those whims. Like throwing eggs at the cat.”
“Strictly fresh, I hope.”
“It’s nothing to laugh about, Mrs. Strode. The poor lady’s heart was broken. He outlived her. What’s this?” Something rattled in Mr. Strode’s riding boot. Dorine pulled out the bottle of bright-colored pills.
Elaine had often blamed nervous imagination for her caution with the sleeping pills. Without asking its cause, Fletcher had agreed to her scheme of doling out two a night. Except on that spring afternoon when he had accused her of wishing that he was dead, there had been no mention of the subject. Now, thrusting out her hand for the vial, her fear took body.
“Is he addicted?” whispered Dorine.
“Please give me that.”
“We had a neighbor once on West Adams, her niece used to hide stuff in her lipstick case. Pretty as a picture, too. You wouldn’t believe it.”
Elaine pressed the vial deep into her pocket. “Please don’t talk about it, Dorine. Ever.”
“They always hide it. Won’t Mr. Strode be mad when he finds it gone?”
“They’re only sleeping pills,” Elaine said irritably.
“People kill themselves with ’em. Take that movie actress. That’s why I won’t work for movie people. You never know what you’ll find in the morning.”
Elaine retreated to her bedroom. She clutched the small bottle protectively as though someone threatened to take it away. What would Fletcher do when he discovered the pills gone from their hiding place? She counted them and realized with what self-control he must have resisted their use on sleepless nights. When she heard the car enter the driveway, she tightened all over as though she had been discovered in sin.
Feltcher was in a buoyant mood. “What have we got for lunch?”
He ate with good appetite. Cindy and Don had not come back, and it seemed natural for Fletcher and Elaine to enjoy a quiet meal on the terrace. A daring blue jay stole crumbs from Fletcher’s plate.
“You know you’re seeing Dr. Gentian this afternoon.”
Fletcher nodded. This was the second important item on his calendar page. Elaine was pleased when she saw him drive off to keep the appointment. A man contemplating suicide would not suffer the pain and ignominy, the hammering and probing, the useless imprisonment, of the dentist’s chair. A visit to the dentist is a gesture toward life. The bottle of sleeping pills made a bulge in the pocket of Elaine’s tight trousers. She had kept them there because she could not decide what to do with them. She decided to hide them in the kitchen cupboard, but Dorine was there frying herself a hamburger. At the bookshelves, looking over her shoulder to be sure she was not observed, Elaine thrust the vial behind her father’s Origin of the Species in Italian. She felt as guilty as if she were involved in crime.
DR. GENTIAN HAD good news. His next patient had canceled, and he could give Mr. Strode an extra half hour. He drilled and talked, filled and talked, discussed with zest the city’s most recent murder. The case interested Dr. Gentian because the victim was a dentist. Gagged and forced to listen, Fletcher sympathized with the assassin. “Am I hurting you?” asked the dentist. Without the slightest notice of Fletcher’s grunt of assent, he went right on with his devilish work, adding pressure to the pointed instrument piercing his victim’s gums. “Take it easy, Mr. Strode. Won’t be long now.”
Only longer than a lifetime. The ordeal became doubly excruciating because Fletcher suddenly remembered that he had left his diary exposed. He had been pondering over an entry when Elaine called him to lunch. She had had to shout for him three times, rather sharply, because she had cooked his favorite cheese soufflé, which could not be left standing. It had been careless of him to leave the diary exposed while he ate, unforgivable to have rushed off without locking it away. Oh, God, if she should find it!
“I’m not hurting you,” Dr. Gentian said reproachfully.
Fletcher shook his head. He was all nerves and uncertainty. The telephone rang. The nurse hurried to the anteroom and came back to say that Mr. Strode’s daughter had called to say she was shopping in the neighborhood and would meet her father in the parking lot.
At long last the ordeal was over, a new appointment written in the book, Fletcher free. Cindy was not at the parking lot when he got there. Tardiness was characteristic of his daughter but imprudent at a time when she was begging for favors. He walked up and down the street, wild with impatience, wondering how he would face Elaine if she had found the diary. While he tried to tell himself that it would serve her right for poking into his private papers, he could not accept the transparent excuse. She would consider him insane, consult a doctor; or worse, desert him altogether. He was in a frenzy of impatience. Small beads of cold sweat dotted his face. He returned to the parking lot. Cindy was still not there. To dull his nerves he went into a bar. Bourbon was his drink, but he ordered Scotch because the phonetics required less effort. The bartender was an idiot who asked questions framed so that they could not be answered with a nod or shake of the head. “Soda or water, sir?” “White Rock or Shasta?” “On the rocks or without ice?”
Fletcher’s voice came out like the roar of a beast. Mangled sounds, exaggerated by an electronic device, caused an instant of shocked silence. At the end of the bar a couple of smart lads turned their heads to look, turned away too hastily. The bartender joined them in a whispered conference. He nodded toward the afflicted customer. Fletcher drank fast and returned to the parking lot. “Can I get your car, sir?” asked the imbecile attendant. “What kind, sir?” Fletcher walked away without bothering to answer.
Cindy appeared with her hair piled in such a heap that the contents of a pilfered safe might have been hidden beneath the mound of gilded straw. Busy with apologies and parcels, she paid no attention to the parking attendant’s questions, so that Fletcher was forced to expose the crippled voice again.
His impatience was compounded by the tempo of traffic and Cindy’s flow of talk. She was all afire about the movie premiere and the party at the oil millionaire’s mansion. “With a marquee on the lawn and flaming shish kebab at midnight.” Many of the women at the party would wear gowns that cost more than a thousand dollars. “Imagine, Daddy! Dresses that cost as much as twenty-five hundred. I’ll never be in that class,” she sighed. “Especially if we get the new house. I won’t be able to buy a new dress for years.” This was offered coyly. There was a pause while she waited for her father to say something about the loan. He said nothing. With a giggle Cindy explained that she indulged in the extravagance of new sandals. By shopping around she had saved four dollars.
An insolent driver tried to cut in ahead of the Lincoln. Fletcher sounded his horn.
“If you can’t spend money you’ve got to spend time.” Cindy giggled.
The insolent driver passed on the right and succeeded in sliding into the lane ahead. He turned and offered a triumphant grin. He was about Don’s age, slender, clean-cut, with the same Ivy League complacence. Suddenly Fletcher’s visions returned; the impudent grin over Elaine’s bare shoulder. Fletcher pressed his foot upon the accelerator and all but jammed into the fellow’s car.
“Daddy, watch it! You may not care about your own life but I’m too young to die.”
Fletcher blew his horn viciously. No one had tried to cut in, but the noise relieved his tension. Traffic moved at an agonizing pace, drivers swore and glared. The road ascended a hill which gave a long view of the dreary line of cars ahead. Afternoon sun assaulted their eyes and miniature suns attacked from the enameled bodies of all the other cars. Gas fumes fouled the air. Eyes burned, noses clogged. Last night for a short time Fletcher had been revived by the lively wind; at the seashore he had enjoyed the simple act of breathing. Now the lack of fresh air brought back the familiar sense of smothering.
All of the day’s irritations came to a climax in the frustration of a traffic jam. A prisoner confined in a metal box, he saw the waiting agony (motors throbbing, gas fumes, thickening, nerves tightening) as a symbol of his living days. All about him in these polished metal prisons the drivers sweated and cursed. What for? Striving to achieve what Fletcher Strode’s labors had brought; useless leisure, a costly home, a powerful car, financial ease, a daughter he could not love, a young wife too lovable. The men in the other cars had certain consolations, the excitement of work, the enjoyment of small triumphs, the hope of future achievements. The smog brought tears to his eyes.
In the next lane of traffic the Ivy League fellow tried to flirt with Cindy. She smiled archly and fondled the structure of bright hair. To show disinterest in the stranger, Cindy turned to her father and once more gave voice to her opinions. Wasn’t it a pity that Daddy hadn’t accepted the tickets for tonight’s affair? Really, Nan had offered them with the best of intentions. She was a kindhearted girl, almost too generous. And Daddy would have loved the movie premiere. The picture was supposed to be super, made from a best-selling novel with the most atrocious sex scenes. And afterward that divine party with the flaming shish kebab at midnight. “You ought to go out more, Daddy. Mix with people. They wouldn’t mind your voice if—”
“Stop chattering.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy, I didn’t mean . . .” She let the sentence trail off. Her father looked as if he were ready to hit someone or drive his car into a post.
Traffic had begun to move a bit faster on the clogged road. Fletcher’s hands ached on the wheel. More tears gathered, but his eyeballs were not cooled. “God damned smog.” The climate would have to change drastically, he decided, before he could make a five-thousand-dollar gift to this silly girl and her fool husband.
RESIDENTS OF LOS ANGELES look curiously at people who walk in the hills. Twice drivers had stopped to ask whether Elaine would like a lift. When she said she wanted to walk, they regarded her as a foreigner or an eccentric. She had grown up in a world where one opened a door and walked on a street, where an errand could become an adventure. Condemned to the motorcar, she often felt herself a prisoner in a cell of metal and glass. Her mood today was wayward. The discovery of the sleeping pills had unnerved her. “Let him! If he’s so crazy to die!”
The road twisted between shady gardens, but there was little pleasure in walking. She constantly had to jump aside to let a car pass. In the long, costly motors, women were more highly polished than their fenders. In this neighborhood wives lived idly, in suspension, remote from reality. They drove these vast, shining monsters, they wore costly clothes, wrapped themselves in lavish fur coats to shop in supermarkets, spent their days wandering in shops, buying or coveting things they did not need. In the monotonous sunshine they dried up and grew old, well-kept, sheltered, proud of having achieved the status of idleness, the privilege of affluent decay. “Not for me, thank you,” she declared and plunged into another sinful dream of freedom.
“I love him.” The words were uttered piously as exorcism against an evil wish. She had thought enough about divorce to know it unthinkable. A marriage begun with all the panache of romantic love, flags flying, bands playing, kisses, flowers, gaiety, and gifts, had become a dreary chore. “I love him.” But love, too stridently asserted, is not love but protest, a seedy thing, an itch too easily irritated, a gaunt skeleton of robust reality. Now that she had betrayed love, there was only duty ahead, the penance of abstinence and devotion.
Having acknowledged guilt and vowed resignation, she allowed herself to view the dark future; caught glimpses of boredom, contemplated sterility, foresaw a life that was not life at all, but a never-ending rehearsal for death’s arrival. In spite of dutiful vows she fell into another dream of liberty, met old friends, attended parties, laughed, skipped along the city’s crowded sidewalks, saw plays, heard music, knew ardor, flirted with virile young men. A Thunderbird tooted at her. “I hate you,” she informed its shining rear.
A glance at her watch brought back reality. It was late. Fletcher would be annoyed if he did not find her when he got home. “As if I lived in a harem,” she told a passing truck. “And the rajah is also the eunuch.” The truck driver backed up to ask if she needed a ride. He enjoyed nothing more, he said, than helping a lady. She told him he was gallant, and he tried to prolong gallantry. The man’s crude flattery pleased and troubled her. She scolded herself for the reluctance to return to her husband. Penitently, “I love him,” she told the treetops.
She came into the house through the back door, walked like a trespasser through the hall. Against the glare of a west window she saw a dark silhouette at Fletcher’s desk. “Oh, darling, you’re back early.” Her laughter, designated to show him that she was glad to find him there, had an artificial ring. “I just went out for a little walk.”
“Hi, sweet.” It was Don, not Fletcher, at the desk. He seemed put out with her for coming into her own house. His expression was strange, as though he were looking at someone he had never before seen. Nervously he ruffled papers on the desk.
“Are you looking for something?”
“Writing paper. I’ve got an important letter to get off and I’ve run out.”
“In the middle drawer. Didn’t you see it?”
“How stupid of me. I thought Dad kept private stuff in there and didn’t even look.” He opened the drawer with his right hand while his left lay firm upon the papers he had rearranged.
Don had been reading Fletcher’s diary.
He was baffled by the contents. Elaine did not look at all like a woman planning a murder. With sweet concern she asked about Don’s luck at the Carter office. He was so bemused that he forgot what he had told them about the situation. “I only got a few minutes with old Carter.”
“I didn’t know you expected an interview with him. I thought it was some executive, that bastard you said . . .” Elaine laughed.
Don echoed the mirth, falsely. “I saw the bastard too. And turned down the job.” He had become so entangled that he could not make a statement without adding a new lie to bolster up the old ones. This morning, after almost an hour on the edge of a chair in an assistant bastard’s outer office, he had been told that the job they had practically offered him had been given to another man.
“You turned it down? Was that wise? Even if they won’t pay the salary you want, you’ve got to start somewhere.”
She spoke so gently that Don, his arm still tight upon the papers that covered the diary, wondered if there was any substance to Fletcher’s fears. Could this soft creature actually be contriving, with household implements and garden poisons, the death of her husband?
“Fletcher thinks so, too. He took all kinds of loathsome jobs to get his start in business. I think he’d be more likely to let you have the money for the house if he were convinced of your”—she sought the right word and used it delicately—“stability.”
“You don’t think I’m unstable, do you, love?”
“I’m serious, Don. Maybe you oughtn’t to buy a house now. It’s such a responsibility and if you don’t have a steady income—”
“We’ve got to live somewhere.” Anger rose. Forgetful, he raised his hand and smote the desk so that the papers were disturbed and a bit of the diary exposed. He covered it hastily. “It’s easy for you to talk. With a setup like this.” He glanced around the room, which was fitted with fine rugs and gleaming wood. As dramatically as hope could raise him to the highest peaks of optimism, he could be sunk to the darkest caverns of despair. The Carter job, which he had affected to scorn, had been his last chance. Now that he had lost it he saw, too clearly, that it could have saved him, convinced Fletcher of his stability, got him the loan and the house, and started him on a new life. He had no more contacts in Los Angeles, no other fraternity brothers to introduce him to important people.
“You can stay here. We’ve got loads of room,” Elaine said and let a comforting hand fall upon his shoulder.
“And have Dad act as if he were giving charity to his own daughter?”
“You’re too sensitive. He only fusses because he’s so miserable. I think he loves Cindy, but he’s been so hurt himself that he’s unable to show affection.”
Don looked up gratefully and let his free right hand cover hers. She backed away.
“We’d better not be too friendly.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“I told you. He’s jealous.”
“Of me?”
“Of everyone.”
Don sprang up with only a quick glance to see that the diary was properly shielded. “Has he any cause to be jealous of me?”
“Don’t be silly. You’re his daughter’s husband.”
“And if I weren’t?”
“I love my husband. Other men don’t interest me.” Immediately her mind was filled with the image of Ralph Julian. With the excuse that she had to prepare dinner, she hurried to the kitchen.
Don left the desk just as he had found it, with the papers in place and the diary uncovered. For no reason at all he felt better. At the bar he helped himself to a slug of Fletcher’s twelve-year-old Bourbon. With a final glance at the desk to be sure he had left the diary open at the proper page, he returned to his room to dress for the gala evening.
In the kitchen Elaine beat eggs and cut up vegetables, but her mind was not on the chores and when sirens shrieked on the hill, she stabbed a paring knife into her thumb. Before she had gone out for her walk she had twice found new hiding places for the sleeping pills. Now the vial lay at the bottom of her jewel case.
Blood from her thumb stained the cucumber. “Damn you, damn, damn, damn!” she shouted at the retreating sirens and beat her heels upon the tiled floor. Don raced into the kitchen in a robe of Paisley silk. He made much of the cut finger, washed and bandaged it. Fletcher and Cindy walked in while he was fastening the adhesive tape. Elaine pulled away too quickly.
Don took a cautious step backward. “She’s cut her finger.”
“Don’s been giving me first aid.”
Fletcher hurried to the den. Cindy went away, pulling at her zipper and begging Don to hurry so that they would be at the theater early enough for her to enjoy the arrival of celebrities. Don lingered to ask whether Elaine thought Fletcher was angry.
“He obviously didn’t like finding us together. You’d better not stay here.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I was just bandaging your finger. You don’t think that would keep him from lending us the money?”
“Better not ask any favors tonight. I’ve forgotten the ice again. He’ll be furious.” She filled the ice bucket awkwardly. Her thumb throbbed. She would have liked to send Don into the den with the ice, but it would not do with his robe flying open and his loins exposed. She hoped Fletcher would not make an issue of Don’s having been only half-dressed when he found them in the kitchen. At lunch there had been a kind of armistice. Fletcher had been awkwardly tender. Perhaps he did not know how to act the betrayed husband any more than she knew the proper behavior of an unfaithful wife. After Don and Cindy were out of the house, she and Fletcher might talk over the situation and come to terms.
She carried the ice bucket, announcing herself with little noises, coughing lightly, rattling the ice, swishing the petticoat under her skirt. If only she could please Fletcher, belong to him again. She had committed the unholiest sin, not with the act of infidelity, but with the act of confession. Absolution could be gained only by making sure of her love.
He was writing in the diary and did not look up when she crossed the room. She set the ice bucket down upon the bar and walked out quietly, like a servant.
THE DIARY HAD been on the desk, open and in plain sight, but did not look as if anyone had touched it. Fletcher was relieved, for he had seen himself unmasked, shamed, and confronted with all sorts of questions and accusations. In his anxiety he had known the diary for what it was, the pitiful plaything of a man bereft of physical and moral power. Belief had been shattered. He had vowed to destroy the wretched book. Once he had found it, apparently untouched, relief turned to irritation. His wife did not care enough to examine his diary and learn his secret thoughts. She had given it to him, often teased him for being so secretive about his diary, put on an act of interest. That’s all it was, a pretty feminine act. She cared more about that half-naked fellow in the kitchen. How had those two spent the afternoon?
He brought out his best twelve-year-old Bourbon. The act of pouring brought back the searing memory of the latest humiliation, the bartender’s masked curiosity, the whispering group at the end of the bar. He turned to the diary, read and relished an item written that morning:
Yesterday she hit me with the news she had a lover. How much can a man take? No matter what schemes are in her mind she ought to be loyal while I am alive. Maybe she is too passionate to control herself. But what a shock to a loving husband. I drove to the ocean and stood on those steep rocks and looked down at the water and was tempted. Then a terrible thought came to my mind. I saw through her devious plans. She may not be brave enough to strike the blow herself so she is trying to provoke me to do it myself. This thought saved my life. I refuse to make it easy for her.
The entry showed rare insight. Fletcher poured another Bourbon, and thought about the incident in the kitchen. “She flaunts her . . .” he wrote, but got no farther because Elaine came in to tell him the soup was on the table.
“I made you minestrone.” Her tone was humble.
This time Fletcher was careful about locking up the diary before he left the room. Don came to dinner in black trousers and a white dinner jacket, which gave brilliant contrast to his dark eyes and ruddy skin. “Don’t you look distinguished!” cried Elaine.
Fletcher said the soup was too salty and pushed his plate away.
Cindy floated in late but grand in her beige organza, new sandals, green paste on her eyelids, pearly tips to her fingers, and the hauteur of a young empress. One would think she was a member of the two-thousand-dollar-gown class. She was piqued because Don had not noticed her new hairdo.
“But I did, love. Indeed I did. The moment you got home.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
He had been binding Elaine’s thumb when Cindy and her father came into the house.
“It’s very becoming, dear,” said Elaine, who wondered if she sounded like a mother-in-law. “Don’t you think so, Fletch?”
“But Daddy, it’s supposed . . . I mean . . . it’s casual. Bouffant casual. Really. All the girls are doing it now.”
“Your father doesn’t see many girls.” Elaine spoke slowly as to a backward child. “He’s not used to these new styles.”
“I’m used to them, and I agree with Dad, that hairdo’s downright ugly. How much prettier Elaine is without makeup and her hair natural.” The remark was ill-timed. Don had meant to show agreement with Fletcher, but he had made the error of praising Elaine. He saw that she had gone rigid and looked away lest Fletcher, aware of every glance and inflection, might misinterpret the flattery.
Cindy noticed nothing. She was all wrapped up in her glamour and the anticipation of the party. Again she chattered about the affair, showing condescension to the pitiful older people who had to stay home and watch TV while gay youth mingled with the rich and famous, danced to irresistible rhythms. Smugly she offered compassion.
Fletcher became more and more irritated by the arrogance. All that fed his daughter’s pride, the filmy dress, the new sandals, the pearls at her throat, the hideous arrangement of her expensively tinted hair, even the good-looking husband, had come from her father’s labors. The silly girl had neither gratitude nor humility, not even the grace to keep quiet about his affliction. On and on she went reminding him that he, too, might have caught a glimpse of this night’s glory if he had not been so rude to Nan Burke.
“Go stick your flaming shish kebab!” His anger rose like the belch that it was, a sickening excrement of sound.
“What, Daddy?”
“We’re just a bit bored with the flaming shish kebab,” Elaine said with determined joviality.
“You’re jealous,” Cindy teased, “because you’re not going to the party.”
“Not at all,” Don put in quickly. “Different people have different tastes.”
“Shut up, you phony!”
This, too, erupted like vomit. Fletcher found it humiliating to have Elaine speak for him, but Don’s taking on the role of interpreter was galling beyond endurance. No doubt he and Elaine had discussed “poor Fletcher,” had agreed on a technique for handling the deluded, disabled husband. At one moment they exchanged conspiratorial glances, at the next avoided each other with conspiratorial indifference. It was quite obvious that Elaine admired the young man in his white dinner jacket. As though her husband did not own three white tuxedoes; as though he had not taken her to Bermuda and Jamaica and Palm Beach for winter holidays and in the summer brought her to parties in Greenwich and Oyster Bay.
“Sorry, sir.”
Was that the best reply Don could offer? With all of his prep school and university and family background, he showed no more spirit than a kindergartner. If anyone had ever called Fletcher Strode a phony—and at Don’s age—the answer would have been a fast one in the puss. At twenty-nine Fletcher Strode had not owned a white dinner jacket, but he had supported his mother and sister, married a demanding woman, made and lost a fortune, and started a second. Until he was laid low by illness he had worked for every dollar he had ever spent. He did not deserve to be patronized by his daughter, pitied by a punk, deceived by his wife.
Elaine and Don tried to cover the empty silence with chitchat. It was hardly better than Cindy’s nonsense. For want of something more intelligent, these college graduates discussed the movie that was to have its first showing that night. Elaine hoped it would be good. She did so admire the star. “He has such unique male vitality.”
“Terrific. Loads of sex appeal,” cried Cindy. “Almost as much as Don.”
What the hell was so unique about it? Fletcher’s mouth opened in preparation for a lion’s roar. Not even a mouse’s squeak emerged. Fury jagged through his body in electric flashes. He struck the table. Silver and dishes rattled. He raised his fist again, pulled back in a mighty effort at control. With the correct technique, a long intake of air into the esophagus and his tongue in position, he prepared for speech.
“I can’t let you have the money.”
The words came out clearly yet the faces of his audience were as blank as if he had not articulated each syllable. Once more he went through the routine and this time, since the tones were all equal and could not show feeling, he used gesture and facial contortions for emphasis. His fist swung up once more, his eyes narrowed, a fierce scowl wrinkled his brow. “I am not giving you that five thousand dollars.”
They understood. “Oh, Daddy.” Cindy winked back tears that threatened her mascara. Elaine spoke as tragically as if her dearest wish had been denied. “Can’t you possibly? Five thousand isn’t so much to you.” She turned, soft-eyed, to spend her sympathy upon the younger man.
Breeding and discipline showed in the composure with which Don accepted disappointment. The stoic silence enraged Fletcher. At Don’s age, possessed of a healthy voice, he would have shouted and fought back. With all the force he could command, he committed speech:
“You think I’ve got money to throw around? Let him go out and earn it like I did. Or do you girls think he deserves it for his unique sex appeal?” Without inflection, the voice failed in irony. His audience faced him blankly. One would think the words had not been uttered.
“God damn you . . . parasites.”
Fletcher’s ear, tuned to the voice of his mind, caught it. The others heard nothing. No sound had come out. Emotion had destroyed control. They saw his writhing lips and waited.
Dumb anger whipped up fury. Why had he been so cursed? He, Fletcher Strode, who had worked hard all his life, taken responsibility, proved his usefulness on earth? The three of them stared like hicks before a sideshow freak. He tried again. His heart pounded, his head throbbed, his throat ached with the strangled sense of helplessness. Tears welled up. Before they could gape at the final disgrace, he sprang up and left them.
Elaine did not hurry to offer comfort. Probably she preferred to console Don. From the den Fletcher heard guarded murmurs. Shortly afterward Don and Cindy drove off in the car that Fletcher Strode’s generosity had provided. The rattle of china, followed by an avalanche pouring through the dishwasher, told him that Elaine was in the kitchen. Once more Fletcher turned to his diary. He read words, but the phrases and thoughts that had filled him with pride had become meaningless marks on paper. Where was Elaine? Time had passed, the dishwasher had quit churning, but she had not come to find him. The house had never been so quiet. Outside, a rising fog had silenced birds and crickets. A strange weight pressed upon him, the sense of muteness. To hear sound he beat both fists upon the desk. He was neither deaf nor dead. Death is silence. He beat the desk again with the fury of relief.
Life returned with the rustle of silk in the hall. He pulled himself up in the desk chair, seized his pen, and pretended to be busy. “Fletch, dear.” She had painted her mouth and contrived a smile. “What did I hear? I was afraid you’d become angry again. Please, darling,” she used the word shyly, “don’t keep hurting yourself.”
Don’t be angry! Why not, for God’s sake? You tell me he’s not your lover, but I’ve got eyes in my head. And a good pair of ears. What am I to think when I hear you bragging about his sex appeal, showing off your shameless passion? Expect me to support him, don’t you? Reproach me for not showering money on your gigolo. All in his mind. From his lips came only broken sound. He had lost control, become as mute as when he lay in the hospital bound down by clamps and tubes, helpless.
Elaine hurried around the desk to touch him with gentle hands. “Darling, please, please don’t try so hard. Just relax and—”
He pushed her off. “Don’t touch me, you whore.”
This, too, was merely mouthed. She did not hear the words. Only his movements rebuffed her. Just the same, she tried to soothe him. “Don’t get panicky. You’re too emotional. When you’ve calmed down a bit, you’ll be able to talk.”
He seized her shoulders and whirled her around so that she could see his lips. Their movement and a nasal whisper brought forth a word.
“Whore!”
She had come to offer remorse, to soothe him with tenderness. Instead she flared, “If that’s how you feel, I’m leaving. I’ve withstood enough, I’m through.” At its peak, her fury collapsed. His wounded animal look defeated her. “Tell me you didn’t mean that.” She offered the memo pad and a pencil.
He backed away.
She went on, “You can’t believe it’s Don. Your daughter’s husband. You know I’d have nothing to do with him. Tell me you didn’t mean that.” Once again she thrust the memo pad toward him.
He made no effort to answer. The silence was piercing and endless, like acute pain. She thought of the pills hidden in her jewel case. “All right, it’s my fault. I hurt you. Unforgivably. But please,” she begged as for a small favor, “believe me, Don was never my lover.”
Fletcher took hold of her shoulders, his fingers like hot claws digging into her flesh. He jerked her close to him. His lips moved but no sound came forth.
Elaine read the question in his face. “He wasn’t important. Someone you don’t know. Just a terrible moment, an impulse. I never want to see the man again as long as I live.” Guilt compounded the lies. Her flesh betrayed her by turning red. She twisted out of the mental claws. Fletcher caught her in flight and struck out with his fist. She reeled backward, recovered balance and, mute too, stared at him in shock. Both hands protected the injured jaw.
He was paralyzed, his body no less impotent than his voice. Often, when his heavy hand had come down upon her in the play of love, Elaine had protested that he did not know his own strength. Fletcher Strode had made many mistakes in his life, committed not a few sins, but he had never before struck a woman. He knew that there were men, many wellborn and educated, who habitually beat up women. He had always thanked God that he was not that type. He could not look at Elaine, who stood there with both hands protecting the injury and her eyes flashing with justified fury. He wanted to speak, to say he had not meant to hurt her, to beg her not to leave him. It was less the physical handicap that kept him from it than his stubborn, rockbound pride.
She ran off. The rustle of her silk petticoat died away. Fletcher barely noticed. To appease his conscience he grasped at the vision which did not, this time, show the face of the unimportant lover, but only the tangle of limbs accompanied by sighs and purrs, blended gasps, the outcry of consummation.
Tears moistened burning eyes. He was crying. It was unthinkable . . . he, Fletcher Strode. He tried to exorcise self-pity by thinking of sums added daily—stocks, real estate holdings, industrial investments, bonds, and bank accounts. Bitterness would not be bribed. Elaine, the fair, Elaine, the lovable. He heard his voice, the old strong voice of Fletcher Strode, heard echoes of raucous laughter, and deliberately revived the vision, watched the embrace tighten, heard the sighing, moaning, singing out of joy in love. He knew the name of her unimportant man. There were not many lovers in Elaine’s life these days. Surely she would not squander herself upon the delivery boys who came to the door, not the clerks with whom she flirted while she questioned the ripeness of melons. The red-haired doctor was not an unimportant lover; he was pale, stringy, thin, Jewish, but not unattractive, and what was more important to Elaine, he was a man who could talk to her about things that were Gothic or ambivalent or nonobjective. Irrelevantly Fletcher recalled a night, shortly after he had started his diary, when he had asked Elaine if she had ever questioned the meaning of life. “Doesn’t everyone?” Her tone had snubbed him. “When you’re a sophomore it’s the burning question.”
Fletcher Strode had never been a sophomore. At sixteen he had left school and become an errand boy, at eighteen he was a salesman, at twenty-three a success. His mind had been filled with schemes and tactics. He had never questioned his purpose in life because he had known it was to make money. Profit had been habit and reflex. His mind had not been permitted the luxury of abstract thought. And his reward was a wife who snubbed him as though he were no more than a sophomore. How much did the red-haired doctor make a year when he was twenty-two? Could that skinny highbrow, with all of his education, think more deeply than Fletcher Strode? If Elaine were to read her husband’s diary, she would recognize the quality of his meditations.
He returned to his desk, found his favorite entry:
Evil is in the air around us. Look at those nearest you. Every soul contains every sin. In the hidden self a murderer waits . . .
And:
When I used to sing in church I believed in good and evil. Nowadays it is the style to say evil is sickness. Where has goodness gone to? Is the modern world just a big hospital?
And:
When you defend what’s yours you have got to destroy something. It can be the very thing you are trying to defend.
He could no longer hypnotize himself by rereading his profoundest ideas. Pride had deserted, too. The diary provided no more solace than the Bourbon. Nothing could console him. There was no peace on earth for Fletcher Strode.
It would not do to let her see him with red eyes and moist cheeks. He rubbed at his face, refolded his handkerchief, thrust it back into his pocket neatly, locked away the diary, turned out the lights, checked the doors. Performing these small duties, he became himself again, master of the house, and reflected upon his thoughtfulness in leaving a light lit in the hall for Don and Cindy.
He walked along the corridor aggressively so that Elaine would hear him. Her door was shut. Underneath he saw a pencil of light. He stopped there, waiting to be asked to come in. In other days after disagreement and a loss of temper, they had both shown contrition, sought forgiveness, and found it in each other’s arms. No quarrel had been allowed to last beyond bedtime. His standing there, meekly waiting for her invitation, showed the depth to which Fletcher Strode had fallen. “I am a cuckold,” he cackled, “I am a cuckold. Fletcher Strode!”
His voice had returned, but he was too involved in contradictions to notice this minor miracle. He loved her, he hated her, he needed her, he never wanted to look into her eyes again. Certainly she had heard his footsteps, had noted the pause, had deliberately ignored his presence at her door. She would never forgive the blow, would forever loathe the sight . . . and the sound . . . of him. Since he had been forced to give up so much else, she was all he had, the only thing that made his life endurable.
She had threatened to leave him. If, by God, she deserted him, he would end it now. There would be no more vacillation. Every day he counted the pills hidden in the riding boot.
On the other side of the door Elaine waited, knowing that he stood there, humble and indecisive, this man who had never in his life wavered in decision. She had but to speak a word and he would open the door, bare his remorse, reaffirm love. She was afraid. Of what? “I love him.” The words had no power. Her jaw throbbed, every nerve end twitched. After a while she heard him walk away. His steps were slow and heavy as though he carried a great load.