by Greg Fields
In such a frame of mind, McIlweath walked over to the college pool on a Saturday afternoon in late June. Anne would be finishing her workout and Tom had agreed to meet her there. Or more precisely, Anne had agreed to let Tom come to the pool at the end of her stint. McIlweath had it in mind to take her to dinner somewhere, someplace simple. It might relax her a bit. They could talk there if they wanted to, or if Anne felt the need.
McIlweath walked into the rear of the old brick gymnasium and headed down the narrow stairway to the men’s locker room. No one was there. He sniffed the pungently familiar odor of chlorine as he went up the opposite stairs to the pool. Near the top he could hear through the door the regular rhythmic slapping of Anne’s strokes against the water. He opened the door and stepped down to the cold tile. Anne’s father sat behind the officials’ table at the side of the pool. McIlweath came up beside him.
“Hello, Tom.”
“Hello, Dr. Newbury. How’s she doing?”
The older man shrugged and made a face. “Not bad, although she won’t be happy with it. But that’s nothing new, is it? She’s going 9500 today.”
“That’s great, especially for this time of year.”
“Yes, but she’ll say her sprints were too slow, or that she had to work too hard to make her splits. Something. It’s always something. How’re you doing, Tom?”
“Good. I didn’t have to work today, so I thought maybe I’d take Anne out to dinner.”
“Your tan gets deeper every time I see you.”
“I’ve been guarding five days a week, sometimes six. At least forty hours. But it’s easy work, and the tan comes with it.”
“Just sit in the tall chair and flirt with the girls, eh?”
“Not me. Besides, most of them are twelve or thirteen, or at the other end of the spectrum. Sixty-five or seventy.”
“Sixty-five is still the middle bloom of life, my friend. Women may still be feminine, men virile. That’s less than ten years away for me.”
“You don’t look it, you know. You’re still in great shape.”
“Clean living. And a feisty daughter, whom I’ll now leave to your care. Have her home at a reasonable hour, won’t you?”
“I always do.”
“You’re a good man, Tom McIlweath.” Dr. Newbury rose from his seat. “But someday you’ll be tempted not to. Someday the two of you will want to break away completely. It’s bound to happen, I’m afraid.”
“Anne’s hardly the rebellious type. And I’m sure it won’t happen tonight,” said McIlweath with a small smile.
“No, she’s not rebellious, Tom, but she can be awfully willful. She’s used to her own way. You know that. The best thing you can do is to stand up to her from time to time. Make her bend a little, even if it’s difficult. She’ll drag you after her if she can, just like a horse pulling a fallen rider caught in the stirrups.”
Tom shook his head. “I don’t think that’s the case with me, Dr. Newbury. We’re good for each other, I think. And we’re partners.”
Dr. Newbury smiled benignly. He turned for the exit. “Enjoy yourself, Tom. And have her home early,” he called over his shoulder.
McIlweath leaned against the table and watched Anne swim, her lean form cutting through the green water, bulletlike. The sinew that propelled her, glistening as she rose from the water in her strokes, head, shoulders, legs, forming the rounded curves that could appear so soft; but all of it solid, unyielding to the touch, sleek, a tarpaulin over the unbent and unbending mounds, a feminine form chiseled in salted driftwood, exhibiting the standard attributes of sexuality but masking a focused, compulsive power. Anne pulled herself, kicking, twisting, gulping for air in turbulent spasms. There was no grace in this, not to those who knew it. But it made her strong. Stronger. Anne reveled in her strength, in the firm contours of her body, in the tight, stringy brawn of her neck, her back and her arms, in the elasticity of her broad legs. She reveled in her speed. She was not like other women. She was not like the soft, self-indulgent princesses who sat back in expectation of the attentions and affections of equally soft, self-indulgent young men. She needed no finery. Her body was her finery, the only gown she would ever wear.
After several laps Anne hit the wall to McIlweath’s left and pulled her torso over the edge of the pool. She rested her forehead on her arms, flat against the poolside, and, head downward, gulped heavily for air, inhaling the rank chlorine. She drew it deeply into her lungs. Rappacini’s daughter, surrounded by her poisons.
McIlweath walked over to the side of the pool. “Hi.” She grunted in response without looking up. “Your father left a while ago.”
“I thought he’d leave sooner,” she said breathlessly. “Let me wind down a bit,” and she threw herself back into the pool to take long, slow backstrokes. Halfway down the length she turned around and stroked leisurely back to the wall. She repeated the process three more times while McIlweath stood waiting. Finally she hopped out of the pool at the corner and walked to a bench a few feet away. McIlweath followed and sat down next to her as she wrapped a towel around her shoulders.
“How’d you do?”
“Lousy. I went 9500.”
“That’s what your father said. How did it feel?”
“It hurts more than it should at this point. I’m not as fast as I should be either. I’m lousy.”
“No, you’re not, Anne. You’re working hard. You’ll peak at the right time and you’ll make the Games. I’ve got confidence in you.”
“Stop it, Tom. You don’t know. Nobody does. And I’m not working nearly as hard as I should. I should be doing 9500 every day, and I’m not. Two days ago I only did 6000, and the day before that I did 5500. That’s terrible. Everybody else I’ll be swimming against is going harder, and longer, and faster.”
“Anne, it’s summer. Give yourself a break. All you have to do is peak in late July.”
“And I never will the way I’m going.”
“Do you feel like dinner? I thought I might take you to Tony’s.”
“What time is it?”
“Four-thirty. By the time you shower and change it’ll be around 5:00. Maybe we could take a walk in the park first or if you’re really hungry we could go right over.”
“Let me get changed.” Anne rose, toweling one of her arms. She headed for the women’s locker room.
“Take your time.”
She did. McIlweath walked around the pool. He read the listing of school records, noting the appearance of his own name three times. He perused the clippings on the bulletin board. Anne did not reappear for forty-five minutes. She wore a pair of corduroys incongruous for the summer, and a print blouse. Her hair was still wet. They walked out through the door of the main gym.
“What do you want to do, Anne?”
“I want to go home.”
“I thought we were going to dinner.”
“I never said that. You did. Just take me home.”
“But why? We’ve got the whole night.”
“Tom, I just don’t feel like doing anything. I want to be alone tonight. I’m lousy company.”
“Is it me?”
“What?”
“Do you want to be alone, or do you just not want to be with me?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“That’s no answer.”
“It’s as much as you’re going to get. I want to be by myself tonight, that’s all.”
“Have I done something to offend you? What the hell is going on?”
“It’s nothing. It’s everything. God damn it, I don’t know. Leave me alone tonight, Tom. I don’t want to deal with anything.”
“Is there something you want to talk about?”
“No,” Anne raised her voice in real exasperation. She fairly shouted her reply. “There’s nothing I want to talk about. I’ve got nothing to say. I’m just tired, do you understand? Not everything in my life has to do with you. I’m tired, and slow, and pissed off. And there’s no point in talking about anythin
g. You don’t understand any of what I’m going through, so what’s the point? Okay?”
“Come on, Anne,” said McIlweath softly as they reached the street. “I’ll take you home. And I’ll call you tomorrow, if that’s all right.”
“You do that.”
***
That same Saturday, two hundred miles to the south, there was no such contention. Glynnis and Conor felt a syncopation, the product of their evening’s passion fully realized. Their thoughts and urges transposed themselves. What one conceived in one’s mind found expression on the other’s tongue. They told each other things they already knew; their steps fell automatically together. Their separate moods paired off—frivolity with frivolity, sobriety with sobriety, all subterfuge behind an eager receptivity to the needs, whims or fancies of the other.
After breakfast they drove to Arlington and walked respectfully through the cemetery. The Boston in Glynnis revived silently at the Kennedys’ gravesites. She stood without speaking amid the stone arenas of their words; it brought a melancholy familiarity, recalling the sharp nasal twangs and Irish Brahmin accents. She did not like graveyards where Bostonians lay buried. Finnegan, too, stood mute, sensing the cold wind that had blown into Glynnis’s humor, not knowing precisely its origin but knowing intuitively that it must be potent. After several minutes, Finnegan knelt before the eternal flame at John Kennedy’s grave, said a silent prayer for aspirations shattered, for a generation abandoned and hence lost, then blessed himself and moved to Robert’s grave, where he repeated his gestures. Glynnis watched. When Finnegan rose she followed him up the gentle hill away from the graves, tightly holding his hand.
They drove westward from the city, through Fairfax, through Falls Church, through Vienna. Glynnis loved the greenery of the suburbs, and especially the sight of sunlight broken by the branches falling on the undergrowth. They went there just to see it, just to get another perspective on a mild summer afternoon. Virginia. The South. The old Confederacy. Glynnis had never been there. They saw a sign for the battlefield at Bull Run and it thrilled them both, history made apparent. They could sense the age in the hills rising before them, and it oddly comforted them.
They got back to Washington early enough to explore the shops along Wisconsin Avenue. Finnegan bought a copy of John Brown’s Body at an old editions bookstore. He looked in each shop they entered to see what caught Glynnis’s eye so that he could learn her tastes. He would have liked to buy a gift of some sort but nothing seemed appropriate. Most of the shops they saw were clothing stores, which offered nothing which Conor could comfortably purchase, or specialty shops—antiques, leather goods and the like—which offered nothing Conor could afford. He bought nothing, but resolved to be better prepared for Glynnis’s next visit.
They walked up M Street, near the University, to look at the old, quaint federal houses. The cobbled brick of the streets made their steps delicate, and they took care not to stumble on the unfamiliar surface. Again a timeless quality to all of it—houses, streets, lamps, trees—that simplified them. Finnegan, from the first time he had set foot in the city, had admired Washington for its history, the broken evidence of lives past. One could not avoid it.
They returned to the townhouse shortly before 6:00. It had been a full day, and somewhat exhausting. The hair around Glynnis’s temples moistened against her skin, the product of their long walking. Still, she smelled of the now familiar lilacs. Conor had noticed her richly exotic scent all day. He had wanted to preserve it somehow, keep it with him when she left. Glynnis’s lovely purple aroma excited him. It had become her mark, channeled permanently into Conor’s memory. He would not be able to think of Glynnis without smelling the lilacs of her hair, her breasts and her neck.
They did not go out to dinner that night. Instead Conor prepared their meal: salmon with ginger, zucchini, salad and black coffee, iced. Glynnis sat at the table while Conor went about his task.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” said Glynnis as Conor at last set a full plate before her.
“You haven’t tasted it yet. I really can’t.”
“Don’t be absurd. This looks delicious. I couldn’t begin to put something like this together.”
He poured them each a glass of Pinot Grigio. “It’s a survival skill, pure and simple. One of the requirements of apartment living with three other guys. I became creative last autumn when I got tired of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs cut up in it. Now my roommate Dan and I do most of the cooking.”
“How’s Dan?”
“Better than me. But then, he’s Italian. The cooking instinct is in his blood, mixed in with garlic and olive oil.”
“You don’t look as if you’re suffering.”
“Ah, a thinly veiled hint that I might lose some weight. In fact I’m not suffering at all. Expensive weekend dinners with my lovely girl keep me from looking too lean.”
“You know, Conor, you might well be on the way to spoiling me.”
“I’d certainly like to try.”
“But what can I do for you? I’m not well versed in all this, although I’ve heard that the way to thoroughly please a man is to keep his stomach full and his testicles empty.”
“Too basic. That implies gratification is solely rooted in the creature comforts. That doesn’t work.”
“Explain, please.”
“We’re social, Glyn. As soon as you introduce collective relationships, you start to complicate matters. Read Plato’s Republic. Society necessitates specialization, and we derive satisfaction from performing what’s required of our societal role. We derive special gratification from improving our societal role. We become competitive, then we look for competitive advantages. Our specialization increases; pressures intensify, and we become more deeply embedded into a social fabric. And that’s just for openers. I won’t even mention our need for individual expression and identity, which leads to art, which is a separate compulsion in itself. We spend all our time carving out a place in a complex society, then trying to make some sense of it. So we need more than food and sex. “
He paused to take a bite of his food. Glynnis watched him with a bemused smile. She enjoyed Conor’s frequent discourses simply because she never took them as seriously as he did himself. They provided entertainment; enlightenment followed only by permission, or by accident.
“We started to outgrow the basic pleasures as soon as our hairy ancestors banded together for mutual protection. In between bopping each other on the head with rocks, they learned security, cooperation, creativity, all the ways a semi-rational creature relates to a group and how he defines himself within it. Eating, sleeping and screwing have always been important, but there’s more to us than that. And we’re stuck with it.”
“But that’s not so bad, do you think? We’ve become infinitely more sophisticated,” said Glynnis.
“With a broader range of satisfactions, but with a broader range of reactions, too. I mean, what’s war but collective self-interest—political, economic, even ethnic—wielded against another group’s perceived interests? And on the individual level, we have thievery, rape, murder, extortion. It seems to me that every evil is the product of a frustrated or perverted quest for one of our sophisticated satisfactions. The more complex we become, the greater our potential for evil.”
“So where does the good come from?”
“Personal fulfillment attained without disturbing the common good, and in fact adding to it. That’s a satisfaction all its own. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that the less self-interested an individual is, the greater his capacity to perform what might generally be called ’good works.’ I suppose that follows from the idea that our complexities are the root of most of society’s wrongs.”
“Maybe the ancient ascetics had the right idea.”
“I doubt it. They divested themselves of all self-interest, which is itself a horrible vanity. Perhaps that’s the most self-interested thing an individual can do. Ironic, isn’t it? But they took themselves completely out of t
he social order, and I think that’s unnatural for a social creature. A better example might be the Mendicants.”
“Where do you fit in, Conor Finnegan? How self-interested are you?”
“Enough to know that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else tonight, or looking into anyone else’s eyes.”
“Talk Irish to me.”
Conor reached out his right hand and grasped Glynnis’s across the table.
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep . . .”
He relinquished her hand and came back to English. “Yeats. A gentle Irishman like myself.”
“You charm me, young bard. How do you remember such things?”
“’Tis you, lass, who inspires me to poetry. You and a fearsome English Lit professor in love with early twentieth century verse.”
“That smacks of self-interest.”
“So be it. It’s a clever man who can combine Romanticism and pragmatism in the same gesture.”
Their lovemaking that night did not spring from premeditated urges expressed spontaneously, but from a desire to extract every subtlety, every nuance from their shared passion, now an open part of their deepening regard for one another. They sat on the couch, wrapped in each other’s arms, aware now of the mysteries that lay ahead and willing to approach them leisurely, without anxiety, without uncertainty. They drew long kisses from one another’s mouth. Conor traced the contours of Glynnis’s lips with his tongue, and she reciprocated. He felt the slithery firmness of her body, he ran his hands through the length of her flowing hair. Glynnis in turn captured the sinewy power of Conor’s arms on her sides and back. She spread her hands across his back, around his broad shoulders and down his lean, solid arms, stanchions that surrounded her there in her feasting.
