Moving On

by Larry McMurtry

  Patsy continued reading. She was very discontent but hoped to read the discontent away. She hated to lie in bed awake, feeling cold and cut off, unwanted and untouched; but when she finally turned off the light, that was how she felt. She thought of Hank, but the thought only made her feel the more hopeless. She felt completely closed off, to him and everyone. If he tried to seduce her it would only make her feel the colder, or else make her angry, and she would drive him away forever and be truly alone. The nicest possibility she could think of was that he might be considerate and stay at the drugstore eating sandwiches a lot, so that she could go in and talk to him when she was lonesome. If he would only do that she might at least have a friend, and she could wheel Davey in from time to time and show him off. Somehow the thought of the three of them at the drugstore was very pleasing to her, and she lay awake awhile, considering which dress it would be best to be wearing when she saw him the first time.

  The next two nights there were no calls from Jim, and Hank did not appear at the drugstore. She found that in the idle intervals of her day she could not help thinking about him or stop trying to imagine how their meeting would be. She decided it would be better if she could somehow manage to meet him first in company—at the drugstore or the library or with the Hortons, perhaps. In company she might be able to indicate nicely that he could not simply return and pick up where he had left off, if that was what he was planning on doing. In company she might convey to him by her manner, and with some delicacy, that their romance—such as it was—had ended when he left. The thought that he might think that he could come marching in after months in the wilds and simply grab her again brought back the feelings of hostility that she had had when she first read the letter. At times the feelings of hostility were very strong.

  But Hank did not play fair. He chose to arrive at an extremely unlikely time, when Patsy had neither hostility nor thought: five-thirty in the morning. The bedroom was gray, barely light, when she realized someone was knocking on the door. She sat up, startled. No thought of Hank was in her mind at all. For a second she thought Jim must be returning, but Jim had a key. It must be Miri. Her mother had told her that Miri was wandering about the country with some friends in a Volkswagen bus. It would be just like Miri to arrive at five-thirty in the morning, totally unannounced and with several shaggy friends. But it would be good to see Miri, anyhow. She got up, yawning, and pulled on her robe. She went to see if Davey was all right. He was asleep on his stomach, with one foot poked through the railings of the baby bed. Then she hurried to the door and opened it, expecting her little sister to fall into her arms.

  Instead, to her shock, Hank stood on the landing. He wore jeans and some kind of work shirt; he looked brown and his hair was tousled. Patsy had not belted her robe, but she held it together over her breasts, too stunned to do more than look at him. She was still half asleep, and despite herself, yawned again, not thinking.

  Hank seemed to find that amusing. He smiled and, without asking, stepped inside the screen and put his arms around her and his cheek against her warm cheek. His face was browner. When he turned to kiss her, her hair got between their mouths and he stopped to brush it aside. Patsy couldn’t think. In the kiss she became dizzy, almost lulled again into sleep and warmth, and too surprised to do anything but surrender. Hank moved his foot to steady them and stepped on her bare toes.

  “Oh, damn it,” she said. “Why’d you come so early?”

  “I drove all night,” he said, yawning.

  They guided each other to the couch. Patsy found that her legs were shaky. “I was sleeping,’ she said, suddenly feeling awkward. When she sat down she tried to keep her gown and robe decently down over her thighs. Hank had never seen her look so desirable and pulled her to him, a bundle of woman still warm from the bed. Patsy felt dazed, confused; her face was so hot, so prickled with feeling that she felt it would singe if he didn’t put his cool cheek against it again. In the midst of kissing, his hand worked its way inside her robe and began to stroke her bare shoulder; then it covered a breast and the feeling that went through her was so strong that she could only grasp his wrist and hold his hand where it was. She began to shake her head, to bump her face against his in soft protest, but it did no good; he had lost sight of her, the way he had so many times before. Soon the hand that had been on her breast got free and was under the robe, and she began to twist, to move her loins back from his hand. Finally, almost desperately, she turned her hips and sat up, straining for breath. “No, what do you mean?” she said. “My son’s in here.”

  Hank had not even noticed the baby bed behind its screen in the corner. He looked at it curiously; he clearly didn’t think it was very important. She felt hurt that he should be so insensitive. Davey turned over and they heard the sound of his foot hitting the baby bed. Hank ceased being so aggressive and as soon as he did, Patsy began to feel comfortable and meek and quiet. “You’ve got to see him,” she said. She stood up, belted her robe, and led him by the hand to the baby bed; she went and got her hairbrush and stood with her shoulder against his chest, watching Davey. He was rubbing his fist against his eyes as if he were about to awaken. “I wish you’d known him when he was younger,” she said. “He’s very changed from how he was.”

  Hank yawned, not very interested in Davey. Patsy smiled. “See his toes, they’re like mine,” she said.

  “So they are,” he agreed, unable to think of anything to say about her son.

  She grimaced and stepped to her dressing table to put down the brush. It suddenly felt odd, having him in her bedroom. “I don’t know why men don’t like babies,” she said. “Don’t you have a better shirt than that? The collar’s fraying.”

  He frowned, as if he found it a little insulting that she should notice such things at such a time. He had to go to the john; she followed him partway to the bathroom and stood with her forehead pressed against a wooden doorjamb, waiting, feeling awkward, suspended, and a little dreamy. When Hank came out he kissed her again and touched her a little roughly; they were out of sight of the baby bed. Patsy was not offended, but she broke away. “Stop doing that,” she said. “I can’t breathe. Leave me so I can breathe—otherwise I can’t cook. You’re probably starved from driving all night to sneak up on me. You’d never have got in if I hadn’t been asleep.”

  “Sure I would,” he said, a little too positively. Her robe had come unbelted; she could not keep his hands off her.

  “Damn it,” she said. “Please go get the paper. I want to cook breakfast before Davey wakes up.”

  When he came in with the paper and his shaving kit Patsy was at the stove scrambling eggs, and there was a grapefruit on the table ready to be eaten. When the eggs were done she let him hold her a bit and stroke her back; she wanted to feel his hands on her shoulders, and by shrugging this way and that got the urge across. He slipped his hands under the robe and held her shoulders. Patsy smiled at her own wiles and broke free and piled up a huge breakfast—cereal, eggs, bacon, toast, and grapefruit. She left him to it and went to see about Davey, whose morning gurglings they had been hearing for several minutes.

  She brought Davey in while Hank was eating and showed Hank to Davey and Davey to Hank, so pleased and unlonely suddenly that her face and eyes shone. Davey was hungry too and she turned her chair aside and fed him while Hank politely read the paper. Instead of feeling shy she felt content and comfortable and full. When Davey was full she strolled around the kitchen with him until he burped and then handed him to Hank, who was finished. She was hungry herself and ate an orange and some toast and strawberry jam. Hank was slightly awkward with Davey, but Davey was quite content to be held by him. He stared at Hank curiously while Patsy read the paper.

  “It’s almost worth getting ravished to be able to read Dear Abby without him slobbering on it,” she said. Then Hank jiggled him too roughly and there was a rush of spit-up. “Should have warned you,” she said, wiping the spit-up off his pants with a dishtowel. When she bent, her robe opened and
she saw Hank glance at her breasts. “Sex fiend,” she said, closing the robe. “He’s peeing on you now, in case you hadn’t noticed. Bring him in the bedroom.”

  Later, when Davey had been diapered and was grabbing happily at his butterflies, they sat on the couch again. Patsy stopped feeling cheerful and began to feel oppressed. She cried a little. Things suddenly seemed too much. She didn’t know what was going to happen. Then the flurry passed and she calmed down; Hank kissed her wet cheekbones and wiped the last tears from the hollows beneath her eyes.

  “I hope you like salty things,” she said. “I’m always crying.

  “Why don’t you ever talk?” she said irritably a few minutes later. It was the most annoying thing about him; unless she talked they just sat silently. Instead of answering he began to kiss her again. Her conversation intimidated him a bit, and his kissing shocked her and left her more and more helpless. Davey was growing bored and was making squalls. They ignored him, and his squalls grew more insistent. Patsy felt very wanton, and Davey’s voice in the background made her feel guilty and sexy at the same time. She wanted to stay where she was but she finally got up and brought Davey to the couch, her lips curving merrily.

  It was certainly a very odd morning. She saw that Hank looked tired; she felt unusually tender and sat stroking his hand, with Davey on the couch between them. Fifteen minutes before Juanita was due she made Hank go away. He had to find an apartment and she gave him precise instructions on what kind to get. His shirttail had come out, and she put her hand under it at the back—both hands, finally—and slid one up and down the trough of his back while they stood at the door. Her robe had come open and he kept drawing her hair tightly around her face. He went out on the landing but then stopped and looked back, smiling. Patsy realized that one breast was exposed. She pulled her robe tight and then stretched, tilting her head to one side so that her hair hung free. “Suffer, sucker,” she said. “You’ll never see that sight again.”

  5

  ELEANOR DID NOT STAY at the motel. She didn’t like motels and would not have stayed there even if there had not been the gossip factor to consider. The hotel she chose had a top-floor suite that she had stayed in before when it was necessary for her to be in Amarillo. It had a balcony, and she was very addicted to balconies. At night she and Sonny and Jim sat on the balcony, drinking and watching the white clouds move over the city and over the plains beyond the city. Then, when Jim was gone and Sonny asleep, she sometimes put on a robe and sat on the balcony alone, enjoying the breezes that crossed the plains at night. Rising at dawn and working all day was not what Sonny was used to, and he went to bed earlier than usual, sometimes by ten o’clock. Often, after he was asleep, Eleanor would see the ten-thirty plane from Dallas passing over the city, its red wing lights winking. Sometimes Sonny woke before midnight, to use the bathroom or ease a cramp in his leg, and he would usually grouch at her because she was not in bed.

  “But I don’t have to get up at dawn,” she said. “I want to sit awhile.”

  Usually, though, she did as he asked. He always slept on his back and he liked her close to him, liked to draw one of her legs across his and hold it as he slept. He had made love to her the night she arrived, but since then had seemed more interested in sleep than in sex.

  “Who’s been wearing you out?” she asked.

  “That director. This was a big mistake, this movie. I didn’t know making it would be so fucking dull. One day of standing around watching them move the goddamn cameras and I don’t feel like doing anything.”

  She was there several days before she found a convenient time to call Joe Percy. Sonny was putting in a guest appearance at a rodeo fifty miles away.

  “How are you?” she asked when Joe answered the phone. “I thought I’d wait to call until we could talk.”

  “Where’s your steady fellow?” he asked.

  “Borger. I think he wishes he could get back to the life he knows.”

  “I wish he could too,” Joe said. “With all my heart I do. Then I could get back to the life I know.”

  “Did you bring that little car you had in Hollywood? I wouldn’t mind being taken for a drive. I wanted to at the time but you didn’t suggest it.”

  “Oh, the Morgan. No, I left it home. I could call the studio and have them air mail it. When am I going to be blessed with your company?”

  “I’m not sure. I’d just as soon Sonny didn’t get the idea that we were old flames. At times he’s pretty possessive.”

  “Can’t blame him,” Joe said. “This is no place for intrigue. Trying to have an affair in this town would be nerve-racking as hell, no matter who you are or who it’s with. Monogamy must have been invented for dumps like Amarillo.”

  “I’m curious about the starlet I read about,” Eleanor said. She had been curious about the starlet ever since she came to Amarillo.

  “Catherine? Do you really care?”

  “Yes, I care,” Eleanor said.

  “That’s depressing. What’s the good of millions of dollars if they can’t keep you from being jealous of Sonny’s conquests?”

  “So she’s his conquest. Is that for sure, or is that just your opinion?”

  Joe hesitated. His opinion was that Sonny screwed Catherine Dunne in her dressing room, in her motel room, in his motel room, and in the hearse, pretty much as the spirit moved him. But he didn’t want to give his full opinion.

  “They may have done it just to be able to put one another on their scorecards,” he said. “It’s unlikely either of them gives a damn about the other.”

  Eleanor was silent. “You seem to have made a kind of conquest yourself,” he said. “Jim Carpenter can do nothing but sing your praises.”

  “He’s young and easily dazzled,” Eleanor said. “I like him a good deal. He’s very bright when he’s encouraged to be. He seems to like being in the movies. I think he feels a little guilty for going off and leaving his wife and baby.”

  “He ought to feel guilty. His wife’s a delight. So far as I can see, you and her are the two best things Texas has produced. I wish one of you were President.”

  “Me and her,” Eleanor said. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that. How would you rate us?”

  “Cut it out,” he said. “If you’re not going to come and see me you don’t get to be jealous. Besides, I don’t really know her. We’ve had two slightly moony conversations in which I waxed profound about life and love. She soaked it up as if I knew what I was talking about.”

  “I guess I’m just still peeved because Sonny chased her home that night in Phoenix.”

  “Well, like it or not, he does get around on you, honey,” Joe said. “I doubt it was Patsy’s fault.”

  “That’s no consolation,” Eleanor said. “I wish I knew why talking to you makes me feel so domestic.”

  “That is a mystery. What do you want to do, come over and wash my socks?”

  “I wouldn’t know how,” she said. “I never washed a sock.”

  They chatted a few minutes more, inconsequentially, of this and that, and when she hung up Eleanor went out on her balcony and looked down on the lights of the city. She felt very melancholy, but it was a familiar late-night melancholy, one that she had known for years. She did not expect to be alone long enough for it to get serious. Somewhere on a road to the north the hearse with the horns painted on it was already speeding back toward Amarillo. Sonny would be different for having been to the rodeo. She had never known a rodeo not to leave some residue of excitement in him, and whatever it left always got through to her. They seldom approached each other casually after he had been to a rodeo. Always he had that recklessness about him that made him so beloved of the crowds—it showed in his walk, his manner, his way of smiling. Frequently she hated him at such times, for he was never more arrogant or less affectionate. Sometimes they fought, sometimes they made love, sometimes they did both—whatever they did was apt to be violent. Sonny made the terms at such times; if she didn’t like them it was too ba
d. Frequently she didn’t like them and fought with him and left, but almost always when she left she regretted it bitterly later. Then, after quiet months at the ranch, or travels that were too smooth, to places she had been, there would be moments, hours, sometimes days, when she was forced to wonder if she had ever been really alive, really in the mainstream, or the maelstrom, or whatever it was. Only the memory of those nights with Sonny after rodeos, when they were both at their wildest, convinced her that she had. The fights were terrible, for she fought to have him all, or to be done with him completely, and neither thing was possible. And the lovemakings generally began as fights, with her cornered near some bed. Her anger did not give way to gentleness, but it gave way to something rawer, something more compelling; then her greed sometimes grew faster than it could be fed. Sonny hated her at such times. She outlasted him, exhausted him; in such a state he could not scare her, could not intimidate her. She held the power and it disturbed him. Sometimes he left, sometimes he fell asleep. Sometimes, though, he was too much; he beat her at her own game. Sometimes the greater energy was his, and he weakened her so with pleasure that she became frightened. It left her hopelessly at his mercy; it was hard to fight him when her body was not with her. Her body was with him, and only some part of her intelligence, some woman in her skull, fought desperately for existence while the rest of her cleaved to Sonny. Sometimes she fought free and left. She would have to keep fighting as she dressed and often would get caught again and pulled back to the bed. It was at just such times, when he could have let her go, that she might abruptly turn the tables on him. When her fright turned back to hunger it was usually Sonny who left. He could sometimes stop her when she tried to leave, but she could never stop him. When he started out, he went. If she managed to get away, she could not relax for days; her body kept wanting him and expecting him; but if he left her she knew it was over for a while, perhaps for a long time, and she lost all fear and nervousness, soaked in a hot bath, and slept in deep relaxation. But whether she left or he left, the memory of such times was a comfort in empty seasons. She need never doubt that she had had the real thing. The real thing sometimes got too real, while it was happening, but she would not have wanted to be without it.