by Gail Godwin
My cousin, whose looks haven’t changed much since she was a pert-faced girl, flicks her flat gray gaze at me. “You still feel guilty about it?”
“Of course I do. I always will.”
“You ought to try analysis.”
“Oh, I’ll probably just stick with my guilt. I work a lot of things out in my acting. Maybe that’s why I hold on to my little storehouse of pain. Every so often I come across a real treasure in there that I can use in my acting.”
My cousin shrugs. “Suit yourself.” She looks at her watch. “Well, I’ve got to get back to the real world.”
She never came to see me once, the whole seventeen months I was in that play. She didn’t apologize or make excuses. Once, during the run, when we were having lunch like this, she flicked her eyes at me and said tonelessly, “Everyone’s talking about that play you’re in; that must make you feel good.” It was the nearest she had come to acknowledging my success, and I felt absurdly grateful for even that tidbit. Yet she’s got a reputation for being a wizard with those murderous kids everyone else has given up on. Something in her connects to them and they respond. My cousin still interests me more than I interest her, and that, I suppose, is why I persist in asking her out to lunch and enduring her slights. I always have to invite her; but she always accepts. One day, I keep telling myself, I am going to crack the code of Becky. Some days I feel closer to success than others.
It gets dark earlier at the end of August, but for those who eat at the family hour, there is a good-size portion of light left between supper and dark. Children can play for another hour outdoors; it is still safe to ride a bicycle; a man or a woman so inclined can go out alone for a walk and return home before the sky has lost its final translucence and people start to wonder where they are.
After supper I made myself go up the hill to survey what was left of my old sanctuary. I went slowly, my head down, in case anybody was watching me from our house. I was acting my sorrow a little, just as someone in mourning feels she has to put on an outward show of sorrow even though her grief really is sincere. After we had come back from Kingston, I had heard Mother and Aunt Mona speaking, in low voices, about my being “upset.” I had stood on the stairs outside the kitchen and eavesdropped as my mother told my aunt how I had rushed down and wanted to call Mott and ask him to stop the destruction. I thought it was loyal of my mother not to tell Aunt Mona the other thing I had said. (Now I realize that she was far too hurt by it to want to repeat it. The fact is, she still hasn’t completely forgiven me, because, every few years or so, when we are talking, she will slip in that old, deadly phrase: “Of course I probably don’t understand the way your mind works, but …”)
“I’ll phone Mott later, and maybe he can explain to her why it had to come down,” I heard Aunt Mona say.
Some children from the development were wandering around on the hill, gaping at the interesting heap of rubble that, only this morning, had been a house. A toilet stuck up incongruously from the piles of splintered boards. That fallen tower of bricks had been the chimney. The children parted warily, and somewhat respectfully, to make room for me, as though I were the owner of the house and had come back, after an absence, to find it devastated. They watched curiously as I walked, deliberately grave, around the boundaries of the old farmhouse. It had seemed to take up so much more space when it was standing. Tomorrow, Aunt Mona had said, the men would come back and load the lumber into trucks. “It’s good, strong, seasoned wood,” she had said. “Some builder will be tickled to death to buy it.” If it was such good, strong wood, then why did the house have to come down?
Jem joined me, still out of breath from running up the hill. “You’re not going to cry, are you?” he demanded.
“Of course not,” I said, addressing myself to the rest of the junior audience as well as to him. “I just think it’s a shame, that’s all. They could at least have taken away the toilet. It’s like leaving someone’s underpants on top of their casket.”
One of the children snickered.
It was impossible to say a real good-bye to the place with all these children milling around. Jem, who now played with a couple of them, jumped up on a board that had fallen on top of a brick, and walked it, seesaw-fashion. Several others followed suit, one small girl falling off. Dumb Mott, I thought; the house is far more dangerous as a heap of rubble than it was standing there minding its own business. And I had actually wanted to phone him to save the place!
I turned and started back down toward the development. Dreariness filled me like a lethal injection. The sky was still bright. The sun still shone on the tops of the trees, though the ground was already in shadow. Yet there was nothing to look forward to, nothing to forestall my return to ordinary family life, to the inevitable drawing of my bedroom curtains, when the milkmaids would flounce once more around me, flashing their pert, uniform smiles.
“Wait, Justin!” Jem caught up with me. He took my hand. “What are you going to do now?” The disconsolateness in his voice betrayed that the end-of-day malaise had hit him, too.
Suddenly I knew what I was going to do. And nobody was going to stop me. To make certain of it, I wasn’t going to ask permission.
I didn’t say anything until we were in the garage, where I kept my bike. Then I said, “Jem, I need to be alone for a while. Will you please tell Mother I’ve gone for a ride and not to worry; I’ll be back before dark.”
I swung up on the bike and was off down the driveway before he could answer.
“I wasn’t going to see you until tomorrow. I made this silly rule that I wouldn’t see you for a whole week. The reason was, I had to think about what you told me, I had to decide how I felt, all on my own, without you watching my face. At first, I’ll admit, it seemed strange that anybody could do that to their mother. But things happened today that—well, I won’t say I would betray my mother in the exact same way you did, but I see now that she can’t understand me the way you do. And I did hurt her today. You and I are two of a kind: we both hurt our mothers.
“I think I have more in common with you than anybody else. You said I was like your dream daughter. Well, I’ve decided I want to be your friend for life and your mystical daughter.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn into another Kitty. I’m just not built that way. In fact, just this past Saturday night, I had a date with Ed Cristiana. But that doesn’t change the way I feel about you. You’re something different in my life; you’re unique. Nothing can ever change the way I feel about you. I’ve put it to the test this week. You’re not perfect, but who is? This week I’ve learned that when you really love someone—and I don’t mean in the Kitty way—you come to accept everything about them, all the moments in their history that have made them into just what they are. And I can accept everything in your past, because it has made you you.…”
All I wanted to do was to ride to her house, see her alone, and tell her that. Then ride off again, leaving her surprised and moved and flattered. Fifteen minutes there, five minutes for the declaration (its brevity would impress her and make the event more ceremonious), then fifteen minutes back. There was a whole hour before dark. I wanted her to know, and it seemed urgent that she know tonight. Then I could carry the security of her knowing back to Lucas Meadows with me. It would be like a pledge between us, a profound moment in which we sealed our bond of alikeness and swore to be true to it. She would enter into the spirit of my declaration. She loved things like that; she loved drama and courting Fate. She would rise to the occasion, I was positive, even though her mouth would twitch with the beginnings of the irrepressible smile: the smile that told me I was young and she knew more than I did but nevertheless she found me charming.
And then, carrying our solidarity inside me, I could ride home, say an affectionate goodnight to my mother, thank her for the skirt and the fleece-lined jacket she had bought me in Kingston that day, and go up to my room and face “Raspberry Ice” and the milkmaids with impunity. Henceforth I would render unt
o biological motherhood its filial dues and affections, but my secret pact with Ursula would have vaccinated me against losing touch with my best, my imaginative self.
As I whizzed past the Cristiana farm, I caught sight of Ed’s little brother carrying a pail of something across the stableyard to the barn. He didn’t see me, and I was glad. I didn’t want to break the intensity of my purpose by having to call hello.
I flew down the hill and over the wooden bridge and past the haywagon road. She wouldn’t be at the hut now, not this late. The only thing I was really worried about was that I would catch them in the middle of eating. I shrank at the image of one of them coming to the front door, wiping his or her lips on a napkin. “Oh! Justin? What a surprise. We’re still having supper, but do come in.” How embarrassing that would be … but I decided I had to risk it. My declaration must be made tonight; I had become superstitiously urgent about it now: it must be made before nightfall, it must be made before Tuesday, the “allowable” day on which I could see her again. I had to see her now, to prove to myself that I accepted her with all her strangenesses and faults.
The DeVane house, with its austere black shutters and ancient gray stones half buried in limestone mortar, looked lonely and forbidding. In contrast, the road in front was just now a generous, curving swath of orange-gold, reflecting the late-afternoon sun. I laid down my bike and, feeling nervous but fated, walked up to their porch and knocked firmly on the door.
Julian DeVane opened it. “Why, hello.” He was obviously surprised to see me. He was carrying a long-stemmed glass of red wine.
“Oh God,” I said. “I interrupted your supper.”
“N-no, we ate early. We had s-sardines on toast. It was our f-favorite meal when we were little.” He smiled wryly, inviting me to approve of their childish indulgence. “Won’t you come in?”
“Is Ursula busy?”
“She’s gone for a walk. I was just s-sitting here drinking wine.”
“Oh.” I tried not to let my disappointment show. “Well, I wanted to tell her something, but I guess it can wait.”
“C-come in, anyway. She’ll be back. This time of day is so m-melancholy, don’t you think?” He gave me a wistful look, his head cocked to one side. There was a disheveled air about him I hadn’t seen before. I realized that he was probably a little drunk.
“Well, okay,” I said, “but I really can’t stay long.” I went in and he closed the door softly behind us. “They’ll worry if I’m not home before dark. How long do you think Ursula will be?”
“It varies. S-sometimes she g-goes in one direction, s-sometimes in another. You know Sissie. She’s p-predictably unpredictable. Will you join me in a glass of w-wine?”
“No, thanks. I’d better not drink and drive.”
It took him a minute to respond to my joke, but then he uttered a soft, appreciative laugh. Swaying slightly, he led the way to the chintz sofa, where, from the looks of things, he had staked himself out for a sunset hour of lugubrious drinking. A stack of library books and a vase of pink and white phlox had been pushed to one side of the table to make room for a rotund half gallon of Chianti. I sat down on the edge of the sofa, in the corner next to the books; he sank down with a sigh and topped off his glass with more wine. “Wh-where have you been all week?” he asked. “We m-missed you.”
“Oh, I had all these social obligations. And then buying clothes for school—all that stuff.” Outside the window, the sky grew fiery-brilliant behind the darkening mountains and the tower as the sun began its descent. I was thinking I would have to make a few minutes of polite conversation before I could leave. Then maybe I could still find Ursula, meet her as she was returning from her walk.
“Will you be gl-glad when school starts?”
“In some ways I will. In others I won’t.” I waited for him to pick up on the last part, which meant I would miss his sister.
“Ah,” he said ambiguously, nodding.
We both stared shyly out the window at the sun slipping down toward the ridge of the mountains.
To break the silence, I said, “I guess you’ve been practicing a lot?”
“Practicing?”
“For your recital next year. Your comeback,” I reminded him.
“Oh,” he said. He tilted his glass and swirled the red wine around. “There’s still p-plenty of time for that,” he said, meditating on the little whirlpool. Then he took a sip of wine and swallowed it very slowly. “You know, anyone with the m-money can hire a hall and give a recital,” he said. “A ‘c-comeback’ is another matter. Especially if you haven’t been anywhere to c-come back to.”
I didn’t know what to say. I looked down at my tanned knees, aligned like two upside-down shields. How it would hurt Ursula to hear him talk like that!
“Ursula has great faith in you,” I said. “And … well, I’m not any musical expert, but when you play, something happens inside me. I think that’s important, the way your playing makes other people feel.”
It sounded incredibly naive, even though I was sincere.
He put down his wineglass and contemplated me with his oblique, in-turned brown eyes, so much softer and less demanding than his sister’s sharp, pouncy, penetrating ones. “You are a lovely girl,” he said. “My sister cares for you a great deal. You’ve been g-good for her.”
“I don’t know about good, but I care for her a lot, too.”
“That’s obvious,” he replied with a gentle smile. He looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers. “I haven’t c-cared for many people, but I’ve grown quite f-fond of you, too.”
“Well, thank you.”
We both looked away, and there was another shy pause.
Then he said, “I have a s-selfish reason for hoping you’ll st-stay in our lives.”
I couldn’t imagine what he was going to say next. Influenced by the tenuous, dreamlike quality of my being here like this at this hour, and his being in this wine-loosed, melancholy mood, I was seized by the fantastic notion that Julian DeVane might be going to propose marriage to me—when I “came of age,” or something. It might be that he really loved me, or it might be more in the spirit that Kitty’s father had proposed marriage to Ursula: because he wanted to please his daughter. But Ursula was not Kitty, I reminded myself. Nevertheless, in the space of those few silent seconds, I imagined myself into a bizarre but strangely contented future, in which, by making myself Julian’s child-bride, I would have gained Ursula as a sister forever.
“You have?” I asked him, with indrawn breath.
“Yes. S-so that after I disappoint her, she will have s-someone else to transfer her ambitions to.” He picked up his glass and drank deeply, as if the wine were medicine. “Sissie n-needs that.”
I have had several decades in which to consider the other ways I might have responded to him. And I have the rest of my life to play with alternate endings to that scene. A playwright with a penchant for the less sensational denouement might simply have had the girl, who was sympathetic and perceptive for her age, tell the depressed musician, “You know what I really need right now, at this sad, sunset hour? A little of that solace my grandfather used to call ‘J. Sanity Bach.’ ” And to oblige his young guest, the musician would pull himself out of the seductive suction of his down-spiraling reverie and go to the piano, and prop up the lid, and take out the music for The Well-Tempered Clavier, or maybe the Goldberg Variations, and, as the light dimmed slowly on the set, he would play himself and the girl back into the rational, balanced universe of that artist whose life and work seem so blessedly immune from the petty snares and torments of this world. And, soon after that, the humorless, overprotective uncle, summoned by the aunt to console the girl, and sent by the mother to find the girl (who had not returned from her bicycle ride before dusk), would knock at the door and provide comic relief, unctuously refusing a glass of wine from his sanguine host, and judiciously shepherding the girl off the set.
Soon after their exit, the sister would return from her walk.
Teasing her brother for sitting morbidly in the dark, she would turn on the lamps. (In a way that indicated symbolically that she was the light of his life?)
“Justin came by,” he would say.
“Justin! At this time of evening?” (The sister looks startled, not very pleased.)
“She wanted you. But she ch-cheered me up.”
“I’m glad. But what on earth made her want to wander around here at this hour?” (The look of alarm and displeasure remains on the sister’s face, but the brother doesn’t see it.)
“S-something she had to t-tell you. Then her uncle showed up, l-looking highly suspicious of me, and made her go home. You d-didn’t see them when you were coming back from your walk, I take it?”
“No. Tonight I decided to cut across the fields.”
“Dear old Sissie. You have to have your v-variations.”
(The sister goes to the window and gazes out intently at the blooming night. Her back is to her brother, her profile to the audience. One hand goes to her throat and remains there, long enough to indicate her awareness of a crisis narrowly averted by sheer good luck.)
“Ah, me,” she would say, recovering her light and amused tone. “The urgencies of the young.”
And her secret, as well as her brother’s bout with despair, would be kept under wraps a while longer. Long enough, perhaps, to turn the action into another mode of drama in the next act: a more contemporary mode in which all the characters are permitted to survive the last act because their creator has endowed them with enough blissful ignorance, or cynicism, to avoid any fatal confrontations with the really unspeakable betrayal, the unthinkable compromise, the ultimate shattered ideal that would destroy an old-fashioned “hero,” obsessed with notions of destiny and honor.
But I am not a playwright, neither in the ironic nor in the tragic mode.
I was not even an actress then. I was a fourteen-year-old girl who liked to think of herself as sympathetic and perceptive for her age, but who was beginning to be repulsed and a little scared by the overwhelming reality that pervaded the twilit room where Julian DeVane and I sat. That reality was acknowledged failure—tantamount to damnation in the eyes of the young. I felt sorry for Julian DeVane, of course, and even sorrier for Ursula, who I knew had invested too deeply in him to be able to “transfer her ambitions” to someone else. But the atmosphere of the room was becoming so oppressive I could not bear it. Now I could smell the sour wine on his breath. I thought I sniffed faintly the toast from their supper, and it made me depressed, no longer envious, to think of all their years of suppers together, abetting each other’s childhood fantasies about the destinies they were entitled to.
