by Mary Astor
In that moment Mavis knew him. She could put off the pain for a while. It would sweep over her later back in Clarke Falls, much later when her son was born. But at the moment the clarity of her understanding was an absorbing wonderment. He was a paper doll, walking in the moonlight, blundering over shadows of objects that did not exist. Her own emotions, her sense of injustice, her acute disappointment in his lack of sensitivity, died down like a fire that has nothing to consume. Loving him was absurd, for there was nothing to love. Being afraid of him was as ridiculous as being afraid of the snakeskin lying in the path, beautiful, shaped in evil, without content of evil.
Charlie often puzzled, in the months that followed, over how strangely she had disappeared. One moment she was at his shoulder at the desk while he paid the bill, and then when he looked around she was gone. He had looked for her for a while back in the room; even at the garage, he asked the boy if she was in the car. Well, that was that. She was just gone, that’s all. And later he could truthfully answer—truthfully enough, that is—when people idly asked if he had ever been married, “Hardly!” with a shrug.
The idea of going through the formalities of a divorce seemed a waste of time to him. Why bother? Why bring something to light that would make him look silly; marrying a backwoods character like Mavis! He could just see himself walking into the house at Nelson and saying, “Mum, I got married while I was on a hunting trip—no, I don’t know where she is now!” Fat chance! Sometimes it was a good idea just to keep one’s mouth shut. It was a personal matter anyway.
And then there was a clamor of bells, the taste of Zoë’s lipstick on his lips; in the vestibule of the church flash bulbs were popping and he was being the proud “lucky man,” smiling down into Zoë’s face and wondering how she had actually achieved the effect of blushing! It was most becoming.
Charlie was an early enlistment in the Navy after Pearl Harbor. He gained the admiration of his office force and basked for a time in the pride of his wife, his parents, and the amazement in Virginia’s eyes at his zeal for his country. She told Jeff, “He could have got out of it so easily—got himself a cushy job in the Pentagon; it’s just not like him.”
Jeff was working at his drawing board, a stack of War Department assignments in front of him, preoccupied. “Be a good thing for him, probably. Now he’ll have to knuckle under. And I’m sure poor Zoë will be glad for a little peace in his absence. . . .”
Zoë was aware of the appellation her intimates gave her. But even so, “poor Zoë” had a feeling of accomplishment. She was the perfect hostess, with the most perfectly appointed apartment in New York; she laughed with her friends over the fact that Charlie simply had to flirt with anything in skirts from nine to ninety. Her whole life was spent in foreseeing and forestalling serious consequences to Charlie’s often unexplainable acts. She knew his partners ran his office but she ran the partners to protect him. With her poise and dignity, she was able to freeze out certain characters Charlie often brought home with him, and to discourage them from coming back. One night he hired a popular New Orleans combo to come in and play for him, bringing along some twenty strange guests. She gave the leader twice what Charlie had paid him, they decided it was too late anyway, and the party had died a natural death.
In her lonely times, and she had many of them, she would think to herself, “This is what I wanted. I wanted to take care of him,” and dropping a small tablet into a glass of cola, she would watch it dissolve and fuzz the dark liquid. Drinking it, waiting for the lift it would bring, she would sigh deeply and bitterly. “You got it, girl; you got it, make the best of it!” and with the dimple nicking her cheek, she would smilingly give orders for the packing of their bags for another unexpected weekend cruise to the Bahamas or a flying trip to Acapulco.
After a trip to Mexico Charlie had decided he wanted to see Elsie, who lived near Los Angeles—see how “his baby sister was making out.” Charlie had somehow never changed his contempt for Herb Jenner as a “soda jockey.” He had been righteously indignant when Elsie and Herb had married hastily, even though they had full parental approval. Elsie had simply said she knew her parents couldn’t stand another big wedding so soon after Jeff’s and Virginia’s, but that they just didn’t want to wait, that Herb would be embarrassed at all the fuss, so, “We’ll just elope, Dad—with you and Mum in on the secret!”
Charlie’s dire predictions that Herb was after Elsie’s money proved false. Herb had worked out the situation with Walter so that, as he said, “he could keep his pride intact” and still permit Elsie to enjoy some of the money from her inheritance. For a while he resisted Walter’s suggestion of a fifty-fifty proposition, but it was better than the ancient idea of a “dowry.” It was simply that Elsie would match him, dollar for dollar—minus one dollar, in whatever he earned. He grumbled awhile at the silly game, but when he realized that, even so, it would be tough on Elsie, he agreed. It was the source of a few quarrels in their early years, until Elsie put her foot down quite firmly. “We have one marriage, we have one bank account. It is an accident that I am able to contribute forty-nine per cent of it; I never had to work for it, take it and be happy about it like you are about what you call my ‘pretty face,’ and stop acting as though you would be happier if I were homely.”
Now he was head of the western regional branch of Mentone Research Laboratories, and their home at Playa del Rey bad a view of the sea, which often comforted Elsie in her occasional bouts of homesickness. It contained the wealth of their love, their twin boys, and a contentment that for some reason irritated Charlie when he and Zoë visited them.
In the patio Herb had a fire going in the barbecue, and the twins were playing, delighted with Uncle Charlie, who had thoroughly charmed them by a magic trick with a coin. “Do it again, Uncle Charlie, do it again!” and Charlie had obliged until Elsie gathered them up protesting, to be off to bed. As they disappeared into the house Charlie watched after them, smiling. Zoë put her hand gently on his shoulder and whispered, “Wouldn’t you like something like that of your own?”
“Don’t be an ass!” he laughed shortly. “The dogs are enough trouble in the apartment, as it is. Of course, it would be handy now, in case of war, to cop a deferment because of kids. Hey, Herb!” he called to where Herb was painting the broilers with an aromatic sauce. “I suppose you’d be called necessary to the war effort in your job, wouldn’t you?”
“Automatically,” said Herb, concentrating on his task.
Charlie pushed his bands into his pockets as he got up and went over to stare into the magenta coals. He said, “Of course, personally, I don’t think there’s going to be a war. The Japs just haven’t got the nerve to try anything against us.”
“You’re not alone in that thinking, Charlie. But if I could tell you about the kind of stuff we’re concentrating on at the lab, it’d make you wonder a bit.”
“What kind of stuff?” Charlie’s eyes widened, and Herb thought to himself, “He’s scared stiff!” and aloud, “Sorry, it’s top secret.”
“Nuts,” said Charlie, and kicked a pebble out of the way as he strolled off to look at the view. The rest of the evening was thoroughly unpleasant. Zoë and Elsie tried to keep apart and ignore the argument, and Herb kept attempting to change the subject. But Charlie persisted and finally grew louder and boasting. He knew a hell of a lot more than Herb with his stinking chemicals. He had talked with certain guys in Washington, and there just wasn’t going to be a war. When Herb finally refused to discuss the matter he switched. “But let me tell you one thing, if there is a fracas, I can tell you that this member of the family is going to be right there in front to slug it out with the yellow-bellies. No hiding behind kids or war-effort jobs for me!”
Zoë said quietly, “Stop talking like that, Charlie. You’re forgetting your manners!”
“Manners? Crap! What does a guy like this know about manners?”
Herb looked ready to punch him, but said instead, “It’s getting late—I’ll call you a ca
b.”
Driving back to the airport, Zoë was silent, as she had learned to be. Charlie was gazing out at the shimmer of the sea, humming a tune. “Cute couple, aren’t they?” he said cheerfully.
Back in New York, though Zoë had geared her life to surprises, she was totally unprepared for Charlie’s new, quiet, thoughtful attitude toward life. Everything about their relationship had had the “light touch,” as though there were something unchic about taking anything too seriously. There were occasional small fights about small matters, always prefaced by his tight smile and overelaborate objections, indicating that since they were both reasonable people the matter must be obvious to both as something to be corrected.
“Darling, I do wish you wouldn’t substitute a poor wine when you can’t buy the one I like from Gilman’s. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble to look someplace else?”
“Darling, could you ask Robert not to put a mirror shine on my shoes? It makes me feel as though I should also wear a diamond stickpin!”
“Darling, I loathe that color on you, please put on something else, just for your Charlie boy?”
“Darling, what in hell has happened to the thermostat? It’s like an oven in here!”
Zoë was not so polite. On one of their rare evenings alone she had put some new Flagstad recordings on the Capehart, and Charlie, clad in robe and slippers, a highball in his hand, kept lifting the needle off the record to replay a passage. “Listen to this, Zoë, see how she takes over from the violins.” And again, “Boy, what a note—even out of her range, it’s absolutely pure.” And the needle scraped a few of the grooves as he sought to find the spot to play it over. Zoë blew up. “For God’s sake, Charlie, sit down and listen and shut up, can’t you! I can’t tell whether it’s Flagstad or Hildegard or you!” Charlie’s face took on his look of being gravely injured but too polite to retaliate. “Sorry, darling; didn’t mean to spoil your fun.” And he stalked off to his room.
He was a happy host, always at his wittiest and gayest with a dozen people around to laugh at him, to admire the perfection of his martinis, to applaud his cynicisms about recent books and plays.
Zoë adapted herself and was content to maintain the frosting on the cake most of the time, to keep a jump ahead of him in matters that took important decisions, for if they were put up to him he would simply avoid them directly, talking at great length, implying that people were “unbelievably stupid,” that “anybody in his right mind” should be able to solve simple problems and not to bother him with such trivialities.
It was a week after they had returned home from California. Without questioning him, Zoë had observed that he had been unusually quiet, truly preoccupied, and not simply off in one of his “sulks.” Daily he read both the morning and evening papers thoroughly, deliberately, without comment.
The grape-colored twilight was deepening outside the long windows of the terrace. A fresh wind, moaning around the towers, had clarified the air and the lights of the buildings sparkled in brilliant splendor. From the dining room came the delicate sound of silver and chinaware being laid for an early dinner, as they were going to the opening of Blithe Spirit at the Morosco Theatre. Charlie flung down his newspaper and called, “Zoë, come here a minute!” in a loud voice. The maid, alarmed, appeared at the doorway, saying, “Mrs. Carewe is dressing, sir, do you wish me to call her?” Charlie made no answer, and the maid disappeared. In a moment Zoë appeared in a pale blue crepe robe, still holding a lipstick in her hand, her mouth pale without its covering.
“Charlie, you’d better dress, it’s getting late—Myra says you wanted me?”
“Zoë. What kind of a man is Gregg Nicholson?” His look was serious, his question obviously requiring an answer.
Zoë waited a second, thrown off balance. “I don’t quite understand what you want to know, Charlie, or what you mean.”
“I wonder why he doesn’t like me?”
“Doesn’t like you? Why, Charlie, he’s been a very loyal friend. I thought it was you who didn’t like him. I certainly think a lot more of him than I used to—he was always—well, too quiet at the wrong times, I thought.”
“That friend of his, Dr. Payne—Larry Payne, très intellectual and all that, they’ve always been buddies.”
“So? Apropos of what, my darling?”
“There’re some things I want to know.”
“Such as?”
“Gregg always said I was a good student—actually a brilliant one!” He flashed a smile which disappeared quickly. Zoë waited. “I wonder what there is to this psychoanalysis stuff?”
“Good lord, Charlie, you mean you want Payne to psychoanalyze you? What’s the matter? What’s troubling you?”
“Nothing’s troubling me!” He gestured to the paper on the floor. “Just something I read in the paper. I’m curious, that’s all.”
“About what?”
“Darling, I want to ask Gregg for dinner—tomorrow night——”
“We’re supposed to go to the Hartleys’ for bridge.”
“Cancel it. And tell Gregg I want him to bring Larry with him.”
“Well—I suppose I could, but it’s a little awkward, just to give him orders that way.”
“Don’t have to give him orders. Tell him I want to know something more about Roger Thorne—maybe I might be able to swing something for Payne—maybe he needs money, for a laboratory, or whatever.”
“Who’s Roger Thorne?”
“Just a guy I knew when we were both kids. Do it for me, will you, love?”
The dinner was one of many. It was a restful time for Zoë. Somehow the whole atmosphere of their life changed. Charlie seemed to prefer an evening with the two men, sitting quietly, talking, smoking, to the merry-go-round of their usual social activities. She got caught up on her reading, leaving the men to go to her own room, listening to the murmur of their voices. Later, when Charlie would come in for a minute before he went to his own room, he would hold her chin and kiss her lightly, affectionately. Thoughtfully he would talk about the evening’s discussion. “Fascinating stuff,” he would say, and a little pleased smile would drift over his face.
“You know what I think, Virginia?” Gregg said one afternoon. He had dropped up to the Shelleys’ to bring a present for Alma and to “cadge a drink.” Over frosty daiquiris, he told Virginia of Charlie’s fascination for Larry Payne.
“I think he’s got a load of guilt about the Thorne boy. He asks so many questions; I think he wants to find out just exactly whether or not he contributed to Roger’s blindness.”
Virginia was deeply interested and a little amazed. It warmed her that Charlie should concern himself: maybe he was—at last—growing up.
“Has he talked about it? About how he beat up Roger?”
“No. No, he hasn’t. But Larry tells me that he’s offered to finance a whole clinical research project that Larry has been dreaming about.”
“Well, Gregg, that’s not so unusual. You know Charlie always doles out elaborate presents to anyone he’s briefly interested in. Just make sure Payne’s got it all sewed up in writing. Charlie can afford it—but he can also forget it!”
“Larry is interested in Charlie’s case, of course.”
“What do you mean—case?” Fleetingly Virginia bristled. The old “outsider” feeling. The defense of the clan. Recognizing her feeling, she shook her head a little and went after the facts. “I mean, does he think Charlie is a ‘wrong ’un’ in some way?”
“No. At least he says that Charlie could pass any mental tests quite brilliantly, but he has a slight reservation. He says that there is a classification that is as yet too vague, too mixed with other abnormal pathology. He says it is recognized by most experts, but some call it one thing and others call it something else.”
“In other words, he doesn’t really know, is that it?”
Gregg patted her hand. “Don’t be troubled, Virginia dear; Larry says positively, definitely that there is no such thing as a ‘taint’ t
hat could be passed on to your offspring.”
“Well—offspring is sort of a collective noun, isn’t it—so I don’t have to worry too much anyway?” An old misery gleamed through the words.
“Not always a collective noun; I mean, Alma Bea is your offspring, and a lovely one, as lovely as her mother.”
Gregg took another sip of his drink, commenting on its deliciousness, till the wave of emotion for Virginia had subsided. He remembered how Herb had often suspected him of being in love with Elsie, and he let it go at that, when, of course, it had been Virginia, starry-eyed and in love with Jeff when he first met her. Not that things would have been different without Jeff, he felt; he was not the kind of man who would attract Virginia. But, loving her, he would be her friend, content to be a good friend to both of them, to be helpful if possible, to protect them both from Charlie; although it seemed as though he could relax his vigilance more and more along those lines. The very fact that Charlie seemed anxious to learn something about himself, to gain some sort of insight, was enormously encouraging.
Virginia was saying, “I don’t think I’ll talk about this too much to Jeff. He says I have always been overconcerned about Charlie, too anxious to find out what makes him tick in that offbeat way.”
Gregg laughed. “Jeff is really wonderful—so right, so truly good. We could all take a lesson from him. I think I would have become filled with bitterness if I had had to go through what he has.”
Always, Virginia’s pride made her face glow, whenever Jeff was being talked about. She smiled. “You know what he said once? I forget just the way he said it, but it was to the effect that we worry too much about the pains and the evils in the world, when actually we should be continually astonished at the great amount of goodness—something like that. It didn’t sound quite so Pollyannaish the way he said it.”
“I know. Jeff isn’t earthbound. He shows his philosophy in what he does in his work. Everything he builds has its roots in the ground, in reality, but they reach heights in beauty and power.” Gregg examined his empty glass. “Do you know, I think I’m slightly intoxicated? The rum you use must be very potent!”
