Experiment in Springtime

by Margaret Millar

  “I don’t know. I’m feeling my way. I’m not a psycho­analyst, which is what he needs. But I’m hoping that I can . . . not cure his neurosis, which I believe is impossible, but direct it into more constructive channels. Briefly, he’s got to have something to live for and to pin his hopes on.” He saw her glance toward the door. “I hope I’m not keeping you from your appointment?”

  “No, of course not,” she said politely.

  “I have to leave now anyway.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything about Charles that might help you. As a matter of fact, I really don’t know him very well.”

  If there was irony behind the remark, it didn’t show in her face or voice. It appeared to be a simple and un­ashamed confession of ignorance. MacNeil thought of his own wife and her rather exasperating habit of telling him she could read him like a book. He thought, somewhere between the two extremes . . .

  When he went out, he met Laura coming up the front steps. She was skipping like a little girl but as soon as she saw him she stopped, rearranged her bones and proceeded into the house with awesome dignity.

  “What have you done with your hair?” Martha said.

  “Like it?”

  “Not very much. It’s like a sheepdog’s.”

  “Steve says it makes me look like Lauren Bacall.”

  “Whoever she may be.”

  “Oh, she’s gorg, simply gorg! Of course, Steve was just kidding me.”

  “It’s more than possible,” Martha said coldly. “I suppose you’ve forgotten I told you not to go over there and bother him.”

  “But he likes me to!”

  “That makes no difference. We can’t have people talk­ing.”

  “Why should they talk? I mean, he’s an old friend, isn’t he? We’ve known him for ages, it would be plain silly not to . . .”

  “For heaven’s sake, will you shut up!”

  She hadn’t intended to say it like that. She knew it would be awkward to antagonize Laura. She continued, more reasonably, “I’m sorry I have to be harsh with you, but you’ve really got to learn a few of the conventions. You sometimes forget that you have certain responsibilities now. You can’t do exactly what you like. You may enjoy talking to Steve, but it just isn’t done.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so. I hope you’re not going to be diffi­cult.”

  “I don’t see why I should be being difficult just because I want to talk to somebody once in a while. Somebody with a little life in them, for a change.”

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  “It’s the truth, though. You’re always telling the truth for no other reason than that it is the truth. But you don’t like it when somebody does it to you! A lot of people could, too.”

  Martha was disturbed by her vehemence. Laura wasn’t easy to handle; in a quiet way she managed to break most of the rules laid down for her. But this open defiance was a new step. It was as if her contact with Steve had made her realize she was a woman, and as a woman, she had certain rights. She no longer had to submit to being bossed by

  another woman.

  Laura took advantage of the silence. “It’s not that I have a crush on him, or anything, which is probably what you’re thinking. It’s just that he makes me feel good. I mean, even when he’s making cracks, he makes me feel . . .”

  “Steve has quite a success with women, especially young girls. If I see you talking to him over there again, he’ll have to leave immediately!”

  “But why?” Laura cried. “Why?”

  “I can’t take any chances on your reputation. You’re only . . .”

  “What about your reputation? You talk to him.”

  “Only because I had to.”

  “In the garage?” Laura said. “I saw you.”

  “What of it?”

  “I was coming home from class and you were leaving the garage and he was there.”

  “Please keep your voice down. I was leaving the garage, certainly. For some extraordinary reason he had started to wash the car. His costume was inappropriate and I had to tell him so.”

  “I know why you don’t want me to talk to him,” Laura said. “You’re jealous.”

  “You’d better go up to your room before I lose my patience with you.” The girl didn’t move. “Do you under­stand me, Laura? You’d better go upstairs and think over what you’ve just said. When you realize the complete irresponsibility and stupidity of your remark, you may come down and apologize.”

  “If you think you’re going to make me apologize, I may as well do it now.”

  “I don’t want you to do it now. Think it over.”

  “All right. I’m sorry.” She was on the verge of tears already, fumbling in her skirt pocket for her handkerchief.

  “Surely you’re not going to cry, Laura,” Martha said, but the tears and the handkerchief had appeared simul­taneously.

  She put her arm around Laura’s shoulders. She felt suddenly worn out, as if there were a number of things fighting each other inside her, draining her vitality.

  She said in a ragged voice, “What on earth is the matter with you, Laura?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s Steve, I suppose.”

  “I—I guess so. I think he—he’s marvelous. I’m the one that’s jealous.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m perfectly crazy about him. I’ve never felt like this before, never.”

  Martha stroked her hair. She was smiling but her eyes were bleak and bitter. It was not Laura who stood crying in the hall, it was herself, Martha. “Oh, you’ll get over it, Laura. Spring is awful when you’re sixteen.”

  “But I won’t get over it! This is it. Lots of girls get married when they’re sixteen.”

  “You won’t, I hope. In the first place, he hasn’t asked you, has he?”

  “No, but I haven’t had a chance yet to get him interested in me. I mean, he hasn’t even seen me in my new blue suit, with my hair up, or anything.”

  “And you want me to give you a chance to get him—interested in you?”

  “Oh, Martha, would you? I know he likes me, I feel it. No matter what he says about me being just a kid, I know he’s just doing it to protect himself against me. I mean, he’s so cynical and sarcastic, but I feel so safe when he’s around, as if he’s looking after me. Oh, I can’t explain it to anyone!”

  “You’re doing very well. Go on.”

  “And he does look after me. He even wants me to give up smoking because he’s afraid it will stunt my growth. It’s a little thing like that that makes me realize he cares for me, even if he doesn’t show it.” Laura’s eyes were shining, still moist from the tears. “Oh, Martha, did you ever feel like this about Charley?”

  “I was older than you when I met Charles.”

  “Well, about anyone, ever?”

  “I suppose so; I don’t remember.”

  “But you couldn’t ever forget a thing like this,” Laura cried. “You couldn’t in a million years!”

  “Yes, you can. You’d be surprised how easy it is to forget, though I suppose you’re too young to believe that.”

  “Age hasn’t anything to do with it.”

  “I expect you won’t believe anything I say about it at all, for a while anyway. Later on, when you’re calmer, we’ll discuss the matter.”

  “We have discussed it. There isn’t anything more to discuss,” Laura said. She took a step back, an expression of shock crossed her face. “You don’t think you’re going to change this with words, do you?”

  “Please be . . .”

  “You do think it, I can tell by your face. You think you’re going to talk at me, say things about Steve—about love . . . As if you knew anything about love! You and Charley—you—you hate each other!”
r />   Martha said, “I’ve taken enough from you today. Go upstairs.”

  “And everybody knows it! You can’t even hide it!”

  Flushed with triumph she started for the stairs.

  “Just a minute,” Martha said. She reached out and grasped Laura by the sleeve of her sweater. The sleeve stretched grotesquely into a wing. “It’s all right, don’t bother, there’s nothing to say.” She let go suddenly, and the wing deflated into a flabby sac of wool.

  “You’ve ruined my sweater.”

  “No, I haven’t. It will be all right when it’s washed.”

  “No, it won’t. You’ve ruined it!” She let out a little sob of rage and ran toward the stairs.

  Martha walked slowly back into the drawing room. “I won’t get over it. This is it. Lots of girls get married when they’re sixteen.”

  Silly, ordinary words. There were probably very few girls that age who hadn’t said them, and very few older sisters who hadn’t sneered at them. There was nothing unusual about the situation at all; nothing to get excited about. This was just another in the series of crushes that filled out Laura’s emotional existence. The difference was that this time the man was Steve Ferris.

  She thought of all the nights she had dreamed that Steve was dead, and had awakened with her breasts taut and aching, and a terrifying gladness surging inside her: “So there. That’s what you get. That’s what you deserve!” But gradually the gladness would dissolve and she was left empty and alone in the darkness.

  Sometimes Charles would come padding into the room in his slippers and stand beside her bed looking down at her uncertainly, a little shyly.

  “Did you call me, Martha?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. I guess you were dreaming.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well. Well, good night, Martha.”

  “Good night.”

  “If you want anything—call me, won’t you?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Charles.”

  “Well. Good night, Martha.”

  But he could never leave right away, briskly. He lingered at the door, he came back to find a cigarette, he brought her a glass of sherry to soothe her. And all the time she’d lie rigid beneath the covers, waiting, her mind screaming: Please go away. Get out. I know what you want but I can’t, Charles. I can’t. Oh, please, I can’t. It isn’t my fault, anybody’s fault, but I can’t!

  “Well, guess I’ll turn in now.”

  “Good night, Charles.”

  “Sure there’s nothing else I can bring you?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’m sorry you had a bad dream.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Good night, Martha.”

  “Good night.”

  Even then her suspense wasn’t over. He would drift away so slowly, as if he hoped she might change her mind and call him back. It was only when she heard him getting into bed in the next room that her muscles would relax. She would lie trembling, loathing herself and Charles and Steve and wishing all of them dead.

  Once Charles left but came back to her room again in five minutes. In the five minutes he had altered. He was no longer shy or ineffectual. His eyes were wild and there were patches of sweat on his pajamas. He strode over and turned on the lamp beside her bed.

  “Wake up!” His voice rasped and he breathed as if he’d been running. “Wake up, you bitch.”

  She sat up, holding the covers over her.

  “Look at me!” he shouted. “Look at me!”

  She looked, but said nothing.

  “Do I have to go to a whorehouse? Do I have to get down on my knees and beg you?” He was shaking uncontrollably, and he kept looking down at himself as if he were fas­cinated and repelled by what he saw. “Do I have to go to a whorehouse?”

  Without speaking she pushed away the covers and slid off the bed. She went over to him and pressed her body hard against his.

  “Charles, Charles,” she said.

  He pushed her away, half-heartedly. She clung to him, clasping her arms around his neck and kissing him passion­ately on the mouth. She felt a rare, impersonal pity for him because he was helpless and it was so easy to help him.

  Charles jerked out the lamp plug with his foot and pity dissolved with the light. Wordless, in the dark, Charles had lost his identity and become a hard, insistent body which fitted into her own. She felt her breasts swell and become erect as if all power to think and be alive had concentrated there, leaving her mind free to doze and dream in some warm, soothing fluid that moved gently back and forth. In the fluid were gentle, anonymous faces and elegant languorous bodies weaving like sea grass; flashes of color like green from an eye half-closed, and gold like a fish.

  The fluid drained off with a spurt, leaving her senseless for a moment. Then she became aware that her breasts were bruised and aching, her nightgown lay torn on the floor, and she was soaked in sweat, whether her own or Charles’s she didn’t know.

  “Charles, wake up. Please wake up, you can sleep in your own bed, Charles.”

  But he was already asleep. He lay on his side, naked and somehow helpless again. He had his hand up over his eyes as if to shield himself from a blow, and though he slept, his face had nothing of peace or satisfaction in it. There were bitter little lines around his mouth, as if even in sleep he could not forget that he had had to fight too long and too hard for his victory.

  “Charles, won’t you please wake up?”

  He didn’t stir, but she fancied that he groaned. The pity returned, and with it an agonizing sense of failure and futility.

  No, you do not have to go to a whorehouse, Charles. You can stay home with me. I try to be as professional as possible.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. It is four o’clock in the morning.

  She got up and covered him, not knowing whether she did it because she didn’t want him to catch cold or because she could no longer stand the sight of him lying there naked.

  Four o’clock. She heard the grandfather clock in the hall mourning the hour, preaching the imminence of doom and then stepping down from the pulpit with a final, solemn “A-hem!”

  Silence again. She could not even hear Charles’s breath­ing, and when she put on her bathrobe and went to the window, she could see nothing stirring in the blackness outside. Everything had died quite suddenly. This was her punishment because she was a bad woman: to sit alone and alive in a dead world.

  This was her punishment, it was just. She accepted it. She sat there until daylight. She had always been terrified of the dark, but she sat quietly and did not turn on the light.

  How long ago was that? she thought. Two years? Three? She couldn’t remember and it was not important, anyway. She and Steve and Charles, they had had their chance and they had, all three of them, made a mess of their lives. The only one who mattered now was Laura.

  I must protect Laura, she thought. I can’t let her make the mistakes I did. I’ll have to get rid of Steve.

  13

  Mrs. Shaw was peeling a tangerine. It was not a very important task but she gave it all her attention. Important things were no longer demanded or expected of her, and this state of affairs suited her. It left her free to concen­trate on little things; she could waste a whole hour, if she wanted to, on peeling a tangerine, separating the sections with delicate precision, and laying them in a row to count. Ten, of course. There always seemed to be ten sections. So orderly, tangerines were. Except for the pits. The number of pits varied. Still, that didn’t matter much. It would have been nice, though, if they hadn’t, so she could say to someone, “Guess how many pits a tangerine has?”

  She ate each section slowly, relishing not the fruit itself, for it was dry and fibrous, but the exquisite sensation of having nothing more to do after it was eaten than to eat another. A wonderful feeling. How Harry would have enjoyed it if
he were still living. They had both worked so hard, harder than other ordinary people, because they were both muddlers and they’d had to work that much harder just to get along.

  She was never bored alone in her room, though the girls often told her she must be. They were continually urging her to go out for a walk, to see the shops, to take in a movie.

  They didn’t understand that she was not idle up in her own room. She thought things. She plucked threads from the past, a grey one here, a red there, and wove them to­gether.

  She had had a full and happy life, but it had never seemed, while she was living it, to have a pattern. Now, of course, she saw that it had. The grey and red threads blended, harmonized. Rather like a tangerine, she thought, always ten sections but an unknown number of pits.

  She felt pleased with herself, as if she had, without help from anyone, discovered an important scientific truth. Maybe some day she would say to someone, “Guess what scientific truth I discovered today?”

  No, it would probably be better not to say it. It would shock the girls. They would think she was losing her mind. They were both, really, incapable of appreciating the im­portance of a tangerine, and what was still odder, they were easily shocked. Especially by me, she thought. They made up their minds years ago what I was like, and if they found I wasn’t like that after all, they would be shocked, or perhaps even hurt.

  One must be very careful with such decisive, positive people. They were so vulnerable. Like glass, they couldn’t bend.

  But it was nice that they were cleverer than Harry or herself. Harry had been clever enough, but he wasted it on little things. Once he’d invented something to stop windows from rattling, a wedge-shaped piece of rubber with a handle. It worked very nicely, but Harry lost interest in it because he said if people could afford to buy some­thing to stop windows from rattling, they could probably afford to have their windows re-fitted. It was one of the few times in his life that Harry had sounded bitter. He had taken all the wedges and thrown them into the trash box. Without them, the windows rattled a great deal, but she was too wise to bring the subject up. They rattled for ten years and she became quite used to the sound eventually.