The Wapshot Chronicle

by John Cheever

  Coverly ran down the hall. Max was standing by the stove. He had torn Betsey’s dress. Coverly swung at him, got him on the side of the jaw and set him down on the floor. Betsey screamed and ran into the living room. Coverly stood over Max, cracking his knuckles. There were tears in his eyes. “Hit me again if you want to, kick me if you want to,” Max said. “I couldn’t punch a hole in a paper bag. That was a lousy thing for me to do, you know, but I just can’t help myself sometimes and I’m glad it’s over and I swear to God I’ll never do it again, but Jesus Christ Coverly sometimes I get so lonely I don’t know where to turn and if it wasn’t for this kid brother of mine that I’m sending through college I think I’d cut my throat, so help me God, I’ve thought of it often enough. You wouldn’t think, just looking at me, that I was suicidal, would you, but so help me God I am an awful lot of the time.

  “Josie’s all right. She’s a darned good sport,” Max said, still speaking from the floor, “and she’ll stay with me through thick and thin and I know that, but she’s very insecure, you know, oh she’s very insecure and I think it’s because she’s lived in so many different places. She gets melancholy, you know, and then she takes it out on me. She says I take advantage of her. She says I don’t bring in the money for the food. I don’t bring in the money for the car. She needs new dresses and she needs new hats and I don’t know what she doesn’t need new and then she gets real sore and goes off on a buying spree and sometimes it’s six months or a year before I can pay the bills. I still owe bills all over the whole United States. Sometimes I don’t think I can stand it any more. Sometimes I think I’m just going to pack my bag and take to the road. That’s what I think, I think I’m entitled to a little fun, a little happiness, you know, and so I take a pass here and a pass there but I’m sorry about Betsey because you and Betsey have been real good friends to us but sometimes I don’t think I can go on unless I have a little fun. I just don’t think I have the strength to go on. I just don’t think I can stand it any more.”

  In the living room Josie had taken Betsey into her arms. “There, there, honey,” Josie was saying, “there, there, there. It’s all over. Nothing happened. I’ll fix your dress. I’ll get you a new dress. He just had too much to drink, that’s all. He’s got the wandering hands. He’s got the wandering hands and he just had too much to drink. Those hands of his, he’s always putting them someplace where they don’t belong. Honey, this isn’t the first time. Even when he’s asleep those hands of his are feeling around all the time until they get hold of something. Even when he’s asleep, honey. There, there, don’t you worry about it any more. Think of me, think of what I have to put up with. Thank God you’ve got a nice, clean husband like Coverly. Think of poor me, think of poor Josie trying to be cheerful all the time and going around picking up after him. Oh, I’m so tired of it. I’m so tired of trying to make his mistakes good. And if we get a couple of dollars ahead he sends it to this kid brother in Cornell. He’s in love with this kid brother, he loves him more than he loves me or you or anybody. He spoils him. It makes my blood boil. He’s living up there like a regular prince in a dormitory with his own bathroom and fancy clothes while I’m mending and sewing and scrubbing to save the price of a cleaning woman so that he can send this college boy an allowance or a new sports jacket or a tennis racket or something. Last year he was worried because the kid didn’t have an extra-special heavy overcoat and I said to him, I said, Max, I said, now look here. You’re worrying yourself sick because he doesn’t have a winter coat, but what about me? Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t have a good winter coat? Did it ever cross your mind that your loving wife is just as entitled to a coat as your kid brother? Did you ever look at it that way? And you know what he said? He said it was cooler up where this college is than it was in Montana where we was living. It didn’t make any impression on him at all. Oh, it’s terrible to be married to a man who’s got something on his mind like that all the time. Sometimes it just makes my blood boil, seeing how he spoils him. But we have to take the lean with the fat, don’t we? Into every real friendship a little rain must fall. Let’s pretend it was that, honey, shall we, let’s pretend it was just a little rain. Let’s go and get the men and drink a friendship cup and let bygones be bygones. Let’s pretend it was just a little rain.”

  In the kitchen they found Max still sitting on the floor and Coverly standing by the sink, cracking his knuckles, but Betsey went to Coverly and pleaded with him in a whisper to forget it. “We’re all going to be friends again,” Josie said loudly. “Come on, come on, it’s all forgotten. We’re all going into the living room and drink a friendship cup and anyone who won’t drink out of the friendship cup is a rotten egg.” Max followed her into the living room and Betsey led Coverly behind. Josie filled a large glass with rum and Coke. “Here’s for auld lang syne,” she said. “Let bygones be bygones. Here’s to friendship.” Betsey began to cry and they all drank from the glass. “Well, I guess we are friends again, aren’t we,” Betsey said, “and I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you just to prove it, I’ll tell you something I had in the back of my mind and that’s even more important to me after this. Saturday is my birthday and I want you and Max to come over for dinner and make it a real celebration with champagne and tuxedos—a regular party and I think it’s all the more important now that we’ve had this little trouble.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, that’s the nicest invitation anyone’s ever given me,” Josie said, and she got up and kissed Betsey and then Coverly and linked her arm in Max’s. Max held his hand out to Coverly and Betsey kissed Josie again and they said good night—softly, softly for it was late then, it was after two o’clock and theirs were the only lights burning in the circle.

  Josie didn’t call Betsey in the morning and when Betsey tried to call her friend either the line was busy or no one answered, but Betsey was too absorbed in the preparations for the party to care much. She bought a new dress and some glasses and napkins and on the night before the party she and Coverly ate supper in the kitchen in order to keep the dining space clean. Coverly had to work on Saturday and he didn’t get home until after five. Everything was ready for the party. Betsey had not put on her new dress yet and was still wearing her bathrobe with her hair in pins but she was excited and happy and when she kissed Coverly she told him to hurry and take his bath. The table was set with one of the cloths, the old candlesticks and the blue china from West Farm. There were dishes of nuts and other things to eat with cocktails on all the tables. Betsey had laid out Coverly’s clothes and he took a shower and was dressing when the telephone rang. “Yes, dear,” Coverly heard Betsey say. “Yes, Josie. Oh. Oh, then you mean you can’t come. I see. Yes, I see. Well, what about tomorrow night? Why don’t we put it off until tomorrow night? I see, oh I see. Well, why don’t you come tonight for just a little while? We can bundle Max up in blankets and you could leave right after dinner if you wanted. I see. I see. Yes, I see. Well, good-by. Yes, good by.”

  Betsey was sitting on the sofa when Coverly came back to the living room. Her hands were in her lap, her face was haggard and wet with tears. “They can’t come,” she said. “Max is sick and has a cold and they can’t come.” Then a loud sob broke from her but when Coverly sat down and put an arm around her she resisted him. “For two days I haven’t done anything but work and think about my party,” she cried. “I haven’t done anything else for two days. I wanted to have a party. I just wanted to have a nice little party. That’s all I wanted.”

  Coverly kept telling her that it didn’t matter and gave her a glass of sherry and then she decided to call the Frascatis. “All I want now is to have a little party,” she said, “and I have all this food and maybe the Frascatis would like to come. They haven’t been very neighborly but maybe that’s because they’re foreigners. I’m going to ask the Frascatis.”

  “Why don’t we forget the whole thing?” Coverly said. “We can eat our supper or take in a movie or something. We can have a good time together.”

 
“I’m going to ask the Frascatis,” Betsey said, and she went to the telephone. “This is Betsey Wapshot,” she said cheerfully, “and I’ve meant to call you again and again but I’ve been a bad neighbor, I’m afraid. We’ve been so busy since we’ve moved in that I haven’t had the time and I’m ashamed of myself for having been such a bad neighbor but I just wondered if you and your husband wouldn’t like to come over tonight and have supper with us.”

  “Thank you but we already had supper,” Mrs. Frascatti said. She hung up.

  Then Coverly heard Betsey calling the Galens. “This is Betsey Wapshot,” she said, “and I’m sorry I haven’t called you sooner because I’ve wanted to know you better but I wondered if you and your husband would like to come over tonight for supper.”

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Mrs. Galen said, “but the Tellermans—I think they’re friends of yours—Max Tellerman’s young brother has just come home from college and they’re bringing him over to see us.”

  Betsey hung up. “Hypocrite,” she sobbed. “Hypocrite. Oh she’d break her back, wouldn’t she to get in good with the Galens and she just wouldn’t tell me, her best friend, she just wouldn’t have the nerve to tell me the truth.”

  “There, there, sugar,” Coverly said. “It isn’t that important. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me,” Betsey cried. “It’s a matter of life and death to me, that’s what it is. I’m going over there and see, I’m just going over there and see if that Mrs. Galen’s telling me the truth. I’m just going over there and see if that Max Tellerman’s sick in bed or if he isn’t. I’m just going over there and see.”

  “Don’t, Betsey,” Coverly said. “Don’t, honey.”

  “I’m just going over there and see, that’s what I’m going to do. Oh I’ve heard enough about this brother of his but when it comes time to introduce him around their old friends aren’t good enough. I’m going over and see.” She stood—Coverly tried to stop her, but she went out the door. In her bathrobe and slippers she marched, bellicosely, up the street to the next circle. The Tellermans’ windows were lighted, but when she rang the bell no one answered and there was no sound. She went around to the back of the house where the curtains on the picture window hadn’t been drawn and looked into their living room. It was empty but there were some cocktail glasses on the table and by the door was a yellow leather suitcase with a Cornell sticker on it. And as she stood there in the dark it seemed that the furies attacked Betsey; that through every incident—every moment of her life—ran the cutting thread, the wire of loneliness, and that when she thought she had been happy she had only deceived herself for under all her happiness lay the pain of loneliness and all her travels and friends were nothing and everything was nothing.

  She walked home and later that night she had a miscarriage.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Betsey was in the hospital for two days and then she came home but she didn’t seem to get better. She was unhappy as well as sick and Coverly felt that she was pushing some kind of stone that had nothing to do with their immediate life—or even with her miscarriage—but with some time in her past. He cooked her supper each night when he came home from the laboratory and talked or tried to talk with her. When she had been in bed for two weeks or longer he asked her if he could call the doctor. “Don’t you dare call the doctor,” Betsey said. “Don’t you dare call the doctor. The only reason you want to call the doctor is to have him come and prove that there isn’t anything wrong with me. You just want to embarrass me. It’s just meanness.” She began to cry but when he sat on the edge of the bed she turned away from him. “I’ll cook the supper,” he said. “Well, don’t cook anything for me,” Betsey said. “I’m too sick to eat.”

  When Coverly stepped into the dark kitchen he could see into the Frascatis’ lighted kitchen where Mr. Frascati was drinking wine and patting his wife on the rump as she went between the stove and the table. He slapped the Venetian blinds shut and, finding some frozen food, cooked it after his fashion, which was not much. He put Betsey’s supper onto a tray and took it into her room. Fretfully she worked herself up to a sitting position in the pillows and let him put the tray on her lap but when he went back into the kitchen she called after him, “Aren’t you going to eat with me? Don’t you want to eat with me? Don’t you even want to look at me?” He took his plate into the bedroom and ate off the dressing table, telling her the news of the laboratory. The long tape he had been working on would be done in three days. He had a new boss named Pancras. He brought Betsey a dish of ice cream and washed up and walked down to the shopping center to buy her some mystery stories at a drugstore. He slept on the sofa, covered with an overcoat and feeling sad and lewd.

  Betsey remained in bed another week and seemed more and more unhappy. “There’s a new doctor at the laboratory, Betsey,” Coverly said one night. “His name is Blennar. I’ve seen him in the cafeteria. He’s a nice-looking fellow. He’s a sort of marriage counselor, and I thought …”

  “I don’t want to hear about him,” Betsey said.

  “But I want you to hear about him, Betsey. I want you to talk with Dr. Blennar. I think he might help us. We’ll go together. Or you could go alone. If you could tell him your troubles …”

  “Why should I tell him my troubles? I know what my troubles are. I hate this house. I hate this place, this Remsen Park.”

  “If you talked with Dr. Blennar …”

  “Is he a psychiatrist?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to prove that I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  “No, Betsey.”

  “Psychiatrists are for crazy people. There’s nothing wrong with me.” Then she got out of bed and went into the living room. “Oh, I’m sick of you, sick of your earnest damned ways, sick of the way you stretch your neck and crack your knuckles and sick of your old father with his dirty letters asking is there any news, is there any good news, is there any news. I’m sick of Wapshots and I don’t give a damn who knows it.” Then she went into the kitchen and came out with the blue dishes that Sarah had sent them from West Farm and began to break them on the floor. Coverly went out of the living room on to the back steps but Betsey followed him and broke the rest of the dishes out there.

  On the day after they were married they had gone out to sea in a steamer of about the same vintage as the Topaze but a good deal bigger. It was a fine day at sea, mild and fair and with a haze suspended all around them so that, but for the wake rolled away at their stern, their sense of direction and their sense of time were obscured. They walked around the decks, hand in hand, finding in the faces of the other passengers great kindliness and humor. They went from the bow down to the shelter of the stern where they could feel the screw thumping underfoot and where many warm winds from the galley and the engine room blew around them and they could see the gulls, hitchhiking their way out to Portugal. They did not raise the island—it was too hazy—and warped in by the lonely clangor of sea bells they saw the place—steeples and cottages and two boys playing catch on a beach—rise up around them through the mist.

  The cottage was far away—a place that belonged to Leander’s time—a huddle of twelve or sixteen cottages, so awry and weather-faded that they might have seemed thrown up to accommodate the victims of some disaster had you not known that they had been built for those people who make a pilgrimage each summer to the sea. The house they went to was like West Farm, a human burrow or habitation that had yielded at every point to the crotchets and meanderings of a growing family. They put down their bags and undressed for a swim.

  It was out of season, early or late, and the inn and the gift shop were under lock and key and they went down the path, hand in hand, as bare as the day they were born with no thought of covering themselves, down the path, dust and in some place ashes and then fine sand like the finest sugar and crusty—it would set your teeth on edge—down onto the coarser sand, wet from the high tide and the sea, ringing then with the music of slammed doors. There
was a rock offshore and Betsey swam for this, Coverly following her through the rich, medicinal broths of the North Atlantic. She sat naked on the rock when he approached her, combing her hair with her fingers, and when he climbed up on the rock she dived back into the sea and he followed her to shore.

  Then he could have roared with joy, kicked up his heels in a jig and sung a loud tune, but he walked instead along the edge of the sea picking up skimmers and firing them out to beyond the surf where they skittered sometimes and sometimes sank. And then a great sadness of contentment seemed to envelop him—a joy so fine that it gently warmed his skin and bones like the first fires of autumn—and going back to her then, still picking skimmers and firing them, slowly, for there was no rush, and kneeling beside her, he covered her mouth with his and her body with him and then—his body raked and exalted—he seemed to see a searing vision of some golden age that bloomed in his mind until he fell asleep.

  The next night when Coverly came home, Betsey had gone. The only message she left him was their canceled savings-account bank-book. He wandered around the house in the dim light. There was nothing here that she had not touched or rearranged, marked with her person and her tastes, and in the dusty light he seemed to feel a premonition of death, he seemed to hear Betsey’s voice. He put on a hat and took a walk. But Remsen Park was not much of a place to walk in. Most of its evening sounds were mechanized and the only woods was a little strip on the far side of the army camp and Coverly went there. When he thought of Betsey he thought of her against scenes of travel—trains and platforms and hotels and asking strangers for help with her bags—and he felt great love and pity. What he could not understand was the heaviness of his emotional investment in a situation that no longer existed. Making a circle around the woods and coming back through the army camp and seeing the houses of Remsen Park he felt a great homesickness for St. Botolphs—for a place whose streets were as excursive and crooked as the human mind, for water shining through trees, human sounds at evening, even Uncle Peepee pushing through the privet in his bare skin. It was a long walk, it was past midnight when he got back, and he threw himself naked onto their marriage bed that still held the fragrance of her skin and dreamed about West Farm.