Payback

by Mary Gordon

  “Okay…let’s move to the house. Pack everything up. Do some footage of the neighborhood. Ooh la la, local color, the old houses, the beautiful old trees. They’ll eat it up.”

  “I’m walking to the front door of the house of my old teacher, Miss Agnes Vaughan, now Agnes di Martini. This is the house she grew up in, the house where I tried to find comfort from her…the house I ran from as a desperate sixteen-year-old…I haven’t been back in thirty-eight years…but, my friends, nothing has changed here…it looks exactly the same.

  “This is the bell I rang, the brass knocker in the shape of a dolphin—that image always came back to me when I thought of that terrible night.

  “And here is Agnes Vaughan, Agnes di Martini…and this is the story of a desperate girl who was betrayed by the person who had pledged to be someone who was always worthy of trust.”

  “Hello, Quin, you’re very welcome.”

  “A bit late for that, Miss Vaughan…or Mrs. di Martini.”

  “We moved the furniture around, Quin…sit on the chairs we’ve put near the windows. The light is fabulous for you.”

  “Wait a minute, Joe, what’s this? These people can’t be here.”

  “They said you said they were going to be part of the show.”

  “Yes, but not yet. Not yet.”

  “Hello, Heidi,” Christina says.

  “It’s Quin.”

  “Not to me.”

  Quin feels a cool sense of satisfaction, of mastery. The air crackles with energy, the energy of hostility…which is the energy she needs. She’s done it again, what she’s best at, sizing up a situation, calculating the pressure points: where to touch to elicit gushing tears and where to set alight a flame of anger. Alone with Agnes, Agnes’s beauty, her mildness. Well, she hadn’t thought of that. But now…the three women bristle with aggression, and aggression is something of use to her. The fuel that runs the engine that has made her name.

  “Perhaps, Quin…if you have some sense when you’ll be ready for them, they might come back later.”

  “We’ll stay here,” Maeve says. “We’ll be in the kitchen or on the back porch.”

  “We haven’t met. I’m Quin Archer.”

  “I know who you are,” Maeve says, making no move to introduce herself.

  * * *

  —

  “So, Miss Vaughan, Mrs. di Martini…it’s still hard for me to call you Agnes.”

  “But please do.”

  “All right, then, Agnes, tell us about you as a teacher in the Lydia Farnsworth School in 1972.”

  “Well, I was very young, I was only twenty-five. I loved teaching. I loved my students. You made me feel so hopeful, and it was not a hopeful time…the Vietnam War was still going on.”

  “We’re not here to talk about Vietnam. We’re here to talk about you and me.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sorry…but, well, it was a strange time, a difficult time.”

  “You taught art.”

  “Yes, studio art and art history.”

  “What was your background?”

  “I had a degree in art history from Pembroke. That was the women’s college attached to Brown. In retrospect, I think I probably wasn’t qualified to teach. I had had no instruction in the methods of teaching.”

  “But your students loved you. I remember that.”

  “You may say that, Heidi…Quin…and if you say that you must add that in your case, certainly, I was unworthy of that love. I betrayed it.”

  “Betrayal. That’s what we’re here for, Agnes, isn’t it, to talk about betrayal. So perhaps we should share with the audience what went on at the time we’re talking about. April of 1972.”

  Quin stands, moves away from the chairs where she and Agnes are sitting, to a place in the room that has been emptied for her, so there is the sense of her taking center stage.

  “It’s 1972. I’m sixteen. A very unhappy sixteen, but most sixteen-year-olds are unhappy. There’s this special teacher…she goes out of her way to make me feel appreciated, which none of the others did.”

  “I thought you were quite gifted. I hope you’ve gone on making art.”

  “This is my art, Agnes, and you’re my subject. But let’s move on. Let’s talk about the boots.”

  “The boots?”

  “The boots you gave me. The red boots. You gave me a pair of red suede boots. You said you’d bought them for yourself, but you didn’t think they were right for you. But you said they were right for me because I had nice legs. Didn’t it occur to you that that was crossing boundaries?”

  “The boots,” Agnes says. “I hadn’t…oh, well, yes, the boots…I remember I bought them for myself and I thought, well, I wasn’t the type, but I knew someone else would be. And I thought, well, you had such an original sense of fashion…I just thought…”

  “You thought what? That those very sexy boots were too dangerous for you, were giving out the wrong signals, but they’d be fine for a shy sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it…but you’re right, of course you’re right…I was very unwise.”

  “You see, I believe that the boots were the whole problem. Or part of the problem. The other part of the problem was your romantic ideas about New York City. That it was the great good place, that I needed to be there to…what did we say then…so I could find myself…but think about it, Agnes, New York in 1972 was a hellhole, and you encouraged a young girl who had no experience there to go down by herself…wearing your red boots.”

  “I thought it would be fine. You were going to a lecture at the Museum of Modern Art. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood…it was the middle of the day.”

  “And I got off the train with the directions you gave me…I remember holding them in my hand…like you were with me, holding my hand. Only I got lost. And I guess I looked lost, because when this man asked me what I was looking for and I said the Museum of Modern Art, he said, Just follow me, and I did, and I didn’t realize he was leading me into a deserted alley. Where it happened. Where I was raped.

  “There are parts of it I just don’t remember…I don’t remember the man’s face. I don’t remember how I got myself back on the train…but I remember, oh, how well I remember, being on the train, cold, so cold…I was only wearing a miniskirt and a jacket I’d gotten at the thrift store and the train seemed freezing to me…I remember the blood, I had to go into a bathroom and line my underwear with toilet paper, and I remember how the bathroom in Penn Station stank…and on the train, the only scrap of comfort I could cling to was, ‘I can go to Miss Vaughan, Miss Vaughan will understand.’

  “I ran up the path—the same path that’s still in front of your house. I rang the bell, and then I used the knocker. Your mother answered the door. She invited me in. She offered me tea. She said she would get you, that you were sleeping. You came down; you were wearing a pink chenille robe. Your hair was in braids…you looked startled, frightened to see me there. And then, when I told you what had happened, you said those words…do you remember, Agnes, do you remember the words you said?”

  “Of course, Quin, of course, how could I ever forget?”

  “Tell us, Agnes, tell us what you said.”

  “I said, ‘How could you have let that happen?’ ”

  “Move closer to the camera, Quin.”

  “ ‘How could you have let that happen’…try to imagine me, terrified, overwhelmed, going to my beloved teacher, the teacher I truly loved, for comfort. And to be told…somehow it was my fault.

  “That, ladies and gentlemen, that was the true violation. I ran like I was running away from the assaulter once again. I took what money I could from my parents’ house. They weren’t home…well, they traveled a lot…I took money from my father’s drawer…I spent the last night in my childhood bed and then I left for good…went to the city…where el
se?

  “And lived, for eight years, eight long years a life of squalor.

  “New York, 1972 to 1980…it disgusts me that some people think those times were glamorous…sexy…full of creative energy. And that’s one of the reasons I do this show: to unmask that kind of lie. I lived in squalor; I squatted in empty apartments where there was no plumbing; I was filthy…the people around me were filthy…and we were in and out of each other’s beds…or mattresses, or sleeping bags…passing diseases around…one morning I woke up and there were small mollusks on my private parts…a form of lice…and oh, we were always combing each other for lice, like monkeys…working at squalid jobs in squalid places…I’ll never eat in a New York diner again…eight years and then…a kind of miracle, only I don’t believe in miracles, I do believe that there was one part of me that stayed intact—call it my mother’s athleticism, I don’t know…somehow one night I made my way to a lecture on Ayn Rand. The Virtue of Selfishness. And I got my life back, because I knew it was my life, my life, and that it was all I had, all that was real, and everything else was a lie. So my life was stolen by one teacher, Agnes Vaughan, stolen and before that distorted by everything you encouraged me to believe was true…but it wasn’t true, it was delusion…and a poisonous delusion that poisoned me…but I was saved by another teacher, another woman…and I have lived since then knowing that all I had was my life, that it was in my hands, and that there was nothing else to look to as the ground of reality. I left New York, thank God. Nothing would induce me to go there again…I moved to Arizona. And I made my life.”

  “I’m very glad your life has turned out well, Quin.”

  “Let’s bring the others in, Joe,” Quin says, standing up and smoothing the back of her dress.

  “Jo Walsh and Christina Datchett were also teachers at the Lydia Farnsworth School; I was also their student. MIZZ Walsh taught history; Miss Datchett…”

  “It’s Doctor,” Christina says. “Dr. Datchett.”

  “Dr. Datchett…so the connection to the school runs very deep and wide. I understand, Dr. Datchett, that you recently married one of your former students. When did same-sex marriage become legal in Rhode Island?”

  “Jeanne was a student of mine…briefly…but we met up years later, at Brown; I was in med school; she was the TA in my anatomy class.”

  “What a funny turnaround…she graded your papers and before that you, when you were her teacher. Would you say she was special to you; would you say you were close? And MIZZ Walsh, would you explain to the audience here why you denied me access to the school today?”

  “Because, Heidi,” Jo says, through her teeth, “it has nothing to do with the school, and I saw no point in involving it in what was a private matter between Agnes and you…something that you’ve turned into…I don’t know, some private little revenge drama…you need to know everyone around here loves Agnes—”

  “Or is it that a private school with not a very good endowment can’t afford to have things investigated that might be better covered up. And there’ve been one too many scandals in tony private schools, am I right, MIZZ Walsh?”

  “Nothing’s being covered up.”

  “Whatever you say. Dr. Datchett, I understand that Agnes’s daughter here is your partner…but by that I mean, only in the business sense.”

  “I am Maeve di Martini, and Agnes is my mother, and I’m very proud of her, and I’m proud of her friends who have loved her and been beside her for all these years. I wonder if you can say the same.”

  “Well, yes, Maeve…or Doctor…that’s my point. I was injured because of what’s happened to me, I’m a survivor, and survivors often have a hard time trusting again…and here you are, all of you, so comfortable…and your mother with her Italian romance…and do you have children, Maeve?”

  “I have one son.”

  “And you, MIZZ Walsh…as I recall, your husband was in prison when I was your student.”

  “He had burned his draft card.”

  “And where is he now? Not still in prison, I assume.”

  “California.”

  “You’re not together, then.”

  “No.”

  “But children. I believe you have two sons. One, I’ve learned, still lives in town here. A carpenter, I think…or more of a handyman. He still lives with you. And your other son is in New York. What is his work?”

  “He works on Wall Street.”

  “Well, that must be a challenge…I remember you saying that Wall Street was the source of the infection that diseased the whole world. Do you see much of your New York son?”

  “He’s quite busy.”

  “Yes, stockbrokers work long hours. But I imagine, on Thanksgiving and Christmas…”

  “We all get together on Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Maeve says, “all three families.”

  “And you, Dr. di Martini, I understand you are the mother of a young son…and your husband is…a gardener.”

  “A landscape architect.”

  “African American, I believe.”

  “Yes, among other things.”

  * * *

  —

  “Joe…back in the living room. Back in the main spot.”

  * * *

  —

  “So you see, folks, I’ve come home. Or come back. I won’t say I’m a victim, because I’m committed to the idea that that’s only a hobble, an impediment, but I’ve had to work hard, work against things to get where I am. There are no warm extended-family Thanksgivings and Christmases for me. Rich and I are on our own. My greatest desire has always been to have a child, but because of the years I lived in squalor in New York, years of drug use and sexual promiscuity…I am incapable of having a child.”

  “There is a God.” The cameraman swivels fast to pick up Christina’s last word.

  “Yes, Dr. Datchett, I suppose you think it’s God…perhaps you even believe in him…but I say it’s because of Agnes Vaughan and what she did…that I have had to make my way, inch by inch, on my own…relying on nothing, counting on no one.”

  “I thought you were married,” Maeve says.

  “Well…yes…of course…of course I meant except for Rich…we walk the road together…but it’s a tough road, and we’ve made every inch of it ourselves.”

  “We’ll do a wide pan now, Quin.”

  “So, I look at you, all of you here, in the place where you grew up, surrounded by such comfort, such love, and I think, well, perhaps I’ll come back, perhaps my PAYBACK will be to find some of what I’ve lost, some of what was taken from me.”

  “You wouldn’t think of coming back here.”

  “Yes, MIZZ Walsh, I might.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, I am serious. I can see that Agnes knows I’m serious. Agnes understands me…or does she…wasn’t that what she told me, that she understood?”

  “I do understand, Quin, why you would want to come back to try to recover what you lost. I’m sorry for what you’ve lost, sorrier than I can say, for what’s been taken from you.”

  “Well, thanks for your understanding…it would have meant everything forty years ago. But I can’t come back here…I’d always be the outsider, as I always have been. Oh, yes, I can just imagine what you might do in the name of defending your mother, your friend, protecting her, getting back at me for exposing her. This is your place. Jo Walsh is the head of the town council…I can just imagine trying to get some sort of building permit and her holding it up for years…or calling a plumber and finding out that he’s her son’s best friend and he just can’t get over to fix my toilet for a week. Your daughter and your best friend are the town doctors. If I had a heart attack, I’d have to worry that maybe they’d tell the ambulance not to rush—”

  “My daughter would never do that…Christina would never do that…Jo would never do that. We�
�re not like that.”

  “People always think they know what the people close to them would do…but people can surprise you. You surprised me, Agnes…I thought I knew who you were. And look what happened. No, I’m not going to stay. I’ll be glad to get out of here. Back to my beautiful desert, to my people, who know to call me by my right name.

  “Close-up, Joe.

  “Quin Archer, saying goodnight for PAYBACK.”

  * * *

  —

  In an instant, the lights are taken down, the crew disappears through the door as if they’d never been there. Pushing past them, Jeanne Larkin walks into the living room.

  Quin jumps as if she’d put her finger in an electric socket. Is it possible that Jeanne Larkin has not aged the slightest bit in forty years? Of course, the lights in the house are dim, the eyes play tricks after the harsh TV lights, but nothing seems to have changed: the tight gold curls, the long legs and boyish torso, the bowed horsewoman’s walk.

  “Hello, Jeanne,” Quin says, “I often thought of you.”

  “I never thought of you,” Jeanne says. “When they mentioned your name a few days ago, I didn’t even remember who you were.”

  “Well, you’ll remember me now,” Quin says.

  Christina puts her arm around Jeanne’s shoulder. “Actually, knowing my wife, I’m not so sure.”

  Quin pulls Rich toward the door roughly, nearly unbalancing him.

  “You’re nothing but two pathetic old dykes,” she says.

  “Quin…,” Rich says. “You don’t need to stoop to that.”

  “Oh, it’s not stooping, or only partially, Rich,” Christina says. “Because we are dykes, yes, we certainly are, and, in my case, probably old—but pathetic, no, that’s where you’re wrong…pathetic…never.”

  The door slams.

  * * *

  —

  Maeve goes to the closet and takes out the wool shawl that belonged to her grandmother. She wraps it around her mother’s shoulders.