by Belva Plain
“Now, hurry,” he said. “It’s late and they’re predicting snow.”
Putting her arms around his neck, she raised her lips for a kiss.
“Roxanne, there’s no time,” he said after brushing her lips.
“That wasn’t a kiss! When I love you so! I get desperate for you sometimes, do you know that? You’re everything to me. If I ever lose you—”
“Roxanne,” he said impatiently as he opened the door, “come on, come on.”
Still she lingered a moment. “I’ve even come to care for this awful room. After all, it’s the only place where we can be alone together. When can we do it again?”
“First things first. I’ve told you what I need. I need you to go back and talk sense into Clive.”
In the parking lot they separated, and Ian sped away. He just wanted to get home to Happy, so smart and pretty and good, a woman who would let him alone, would be content and busy, not whining or crying for love or asking for money.
Clive had been lying on the sofa for most of the day, reading, dozing, reading some more, watching some television, and watching the fire. Now and then he got up to put on a fresh log. It was such a pleasure to see the rush of sparks, the orange flare and then the dying down into a steady, homelike snap and crackle. Once he went into the tiny, perfect kitchen and made himself a pot of herbal tea, which he carried back to the fireside to enjoy with some of Roxanne’s lemon cookies.
He loved the cottage. In a very different way, it was just as satisfying to him as his fine house in suburban Scythia. It was a log cabin, an elemental structure, and he had conceived it himself. The forest was all around him, so close that when the windows were open, you were able to hear its rustle. Even on a still day, the forest rustled. Most people didn’t know that. And his horses—there were two now, his own and Roxanne’s—had stables just up the rise behind Father’s house. There was so much to enjoy.
And he was getting better. He felt he was. Slowly, strength was returning. With a little luck, he’d soon be able to ride again. With a little more luck, his hair, such as there was of it, ought to be coming back. On sudden impulse, he went to the mirror in the bathroom. There was no sign of hair yet, only a shiny, knobby skull. When you had hair, you didn’t know that a skull was not smoothly rounded like a ball. Oh, it was ugly. He was ugly. Now with his cheeks so thin and sunken, his chin appeared to have receded; even though that wasn’t plausible, since chins don’t move about, it seemed so. And his teeth looked enormous, like a horse’s teeth.
Anxiety wrinkled his forehead. What could Roxanne, a ravishing, radiant woman like Roxanne, really think of him? Truly, in her heart of hearts, in the place that people, no matter how smiling and kind, never do reveal? He worried about it almost all the time. Yet there was no sense in worrying; worry didn’t answer your questions. Better simply to enjoy what you had without analyzing the whys and wherefores.
She was having his baby. In spite of the sickness that had attacked him like some savage, lurking criminal, he had achieved this wonderful thing: a baby that belonged to him, to him and Roxanne.
They hadn’t made love in weeks. Or was it longer? Between the surgery and all the treatments, he had lost track of time. It must be hard for a healthy young woman like her to go so long without any loving. Well, give him another couple of months, and he would be as good as new.
“I am so happy,” he said aloud, startling the pug Angel, who had been asleep in his fancy basket.
And he reflected that he should have had a home of his own years ago. He should have struck out into the world, maybe not have worked in the family firm at all, or at least not have lived at Hawthorne with his father. You make mistakes.… Still, he knew quite well why he had made them. Hawthorne was shelter. As a boy, he had come back to it from prep school in misery. He had been no athlete, he had been inches shorter than anyone else, and in the pecking order he had naturally been at the bottom. The pit. Father, understanding, had let him go to the local school and come back to his shelter every night.
My son will be different, he thought. I hope he will look like Ian. But then, a little girl would be so nice, too, a little girl like Tina, chubby and pink. I haven’t seen her for so long. I wish she wouldn’t stay away.
A car moved into the shed that was attached to the house. She was home. Gladly, he got up to greet her.
“Where were you so long?” he asked. “I’ve missed you.”
Now she would have to make boring explanations and answer a hundred questions about her sister’s school and whether she’d have to see the dentist about that tooth again. He always wanted to know everything; he acted so interested in every little thing about her. It was as if he wanted to eat her up.
She was in very low spirits anyway. All the way home she had been reliving the day. Very definitely, something had changed. Ian had not been loving at all. He had only wanted quick sex, which was not enough; if that was the only thing a man and woman had together, then they had really nothing.…
“I told you,” she began, and hearing the exasperation in her own voice, turned a smile to him. After all, she did care about Clive and mustn’t take her bad mood out on the poor man.
“I went to the dentist, he fixed the filling, it was nothing. Then I met my sister, we had a late lunch, talked till three o’clock, and here I am.”
“So you had a good day. How is Michelle?”
“She’s fine. She has a Florida tan.” And reminding herself to show appreciation, she added, “She sends her love. She can’t thank you enough. The school is great, her marks are good, and you’re going to see a good report card.”
Clive almost beamed. “That’s wonderful,” he said.
It was plain to see that he really cared. And this surprised her, for why should he care about a girl he scarcely knew? He was full of puzzles.
“I had to creep home. It’s just starting to snow, and I get nervous on slippery roads.”
“You look mighty dressed up for a trip to the dentist and lunch downtown.”
“I wanted Michelle to see the coat,” she explained as she shook out a few melting snowflakes and hung it in the closet.
“Did she like it?”
He was a pest. It was as if he just had to talk, keep talking, to keep her with him, to keep her from walking away out of his sight. Today, she found him especially irritating. It was strange how you could be actually fond of a person, grateful and kind toward him, and still sometimes be so annoyed by his very presence.
“She loved it. And why shouldn’t she? It’s one of the most beautiful coats I’ve ever seen.”
“You look like a doll in it. You look like a doll in everything you put on. But you look best without anything on at all.”
Once more, she arranged an appropriate smile on her face and flirted. “Think so, do you?”
“Yes, I do. I haven’t been seeing you like that lately.”
“Of course not. You’ve been sick.”
“Well, I’m on the last lap. As soon as I reach the finish line, back to normal. I’ll make up for lost time, I promise you.”
She flinched. He really believed that she had been missing his embraces, that she was impatient for more of them. But had she not given him every reason to believe that her passionate responses were true? Today, after having been with Ian again, she had to marvel at herself, to wonder how she had managed to fake those responses so well. Now he was becoming physically repulsive to her. She could hardly bear to touch him at all, poor thing.
“You must be starved,” she said. “I’ll have dinner ready in twenty minutes.”
“I thought we’d be eating up the hill with Father this week.”
“Starting tomorrow. I thought maybe you’d like me to give this little kitchen a workout for the first time.”
“You’re right. You think of everything.”
Angel came pawing at her foot, and she picked him up to hug and kiss the top of his head. “Sweet boy. He’s hungry too,” she said.
“Come here and give me a kiss. I need one more than Angel does.”
Intending to drop one on the top of Clive’s head, which was not silky like Angel’s, she met instead an upturned face and pursed lips. They were wet, and when she withdrew from them, she had to force herself not to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Do let me get dinner,” she said gaily, since Clive seemed on the verge of more kissing.
The kitchen, intended for little more than the preparation of breakfast, a sandwich lunch, or cup of tea, was too small for him to sit down in. At home, he had lately acquired the habit of keeping her company while she cooked. It was enough to drive a person crazy, being watched like that. It would be a relief when he went back to work full time.
A new kind of fear had come upon her. For months she had been free of it; once she had mustered the courage to leave Ian and try her luck with Clive, she had felt relieved and safe, sure that she would be able to make a success out of being Clive’s wife. Now fear, with a sickening jolt, had come back and lay inside her, quivering like something alive.
Her hands worked automatically to mix a salad, season the tuna steak, and slice the bread, but her mind was floundering.
You’ll be taken care of for life, Ian had said. But only if you can get him to go my way. What, then, was the opposite? That she would lose all this … Unconsciously, her arm swung out to encompass the surroundings. If Clive should die, she might well lose it. These people knew their way with lawyers and courts. Yes, there was no doubt about it: She had been threatened this afternoon. It was Ian who had threatened her.
Go home and do it. You can do it. And he had sounded so harsh saying it, not like himself at all. It wasn’t fair to drag her into their family fights or into their business; she knew nothing about either. By rights, he ought to be protecting her, the mother of his baby. And Roxanne put her hand on her stomach, feeling not tenderness toward whoever was growing there, but anger toward her situation, which she now understood quite clearly. She was losing Ian, his strong body, his power, his humor, his sweetness, his simple maleness.
And she loved him so! Her eyes filmed and she blinked hard before Clive should poke his head in at the door. I would have loved him if he had nothing, she thought, and immediately, frankly, demanded: Would I? For a minute she pondered that and concluded that even if his wealth did matter much to her, there was no harm in that, for after all, if she had been a fat, homely woman, would he have loved her? But it was over.
Still, it was not quite over yet! Yes, she was losing him and she was frantic, but perhaps if she could just get Clive to do what Ian wanted, she would not lose him.
In some way, she would have to do it. As she set the little round table opposite the fireside, where Clive had fallen into a doze with his mouth open, she encouraged herself. Slowly, confidence began to build. Clive had always given her what she wanted, so why not this, too? The problem was how to start the subject so that it would seem natural coming from her.
She touched him on the shoulder and announced with a lilt that dinner was ready. He woke at once. Seeing the table so nicely arranged with a pair of candles lit and a colorful platter of fish in a garland of vegetables, he exclaimed as always, “You know how to do everything!”
“Well, I try,” she said prettily. “I want to see you happy.”
He gave a luxurious sigh. “Who wouldn’t be happy here with you?”
They were ready for dessert, and Roxanne had not yet found a way to broach the subject. Then a gust of wind shook the window.
“I have an idea we’re in for a real storm,” Clive said. “We haven’t had a big snow yet this season, so we’re due for one. There’s nothing like these woods on the morning after a storm, when the snow has stopped at two feet deep and there isn’t a mark on it.”
Here was the opening. “You do love these woods,” she said, and then, “Is this the section those people want to buy?”
“Nowhere near here. They’re looking at the other side of the river, down near Scythia.”
“That’s not so bad, then.”
“Not so bad! I think it’s terrible anywhere. These woods should be kept intact.”
“A lot of people don’t think so. They say that that company will bring jobs and new businesses to serve all the new homes.”
“Yes, it’ll be a short-term gain, but the forest can last forever if you don’t touch it. Once you destroy it, you can’t replace it.”
He spoke so positively that fear began its quivering again in her chest.
“But it’s so large,” she said. “There would be so much left untouched if you sold the part they want. So you could really have it both ways, couldn’t you?”
“No,” Clive said. “Once you start selling it off, you’ll have created a bad precedent. Piece by piece it will disappear.”
“It wouldn’t have to. You could say this is the only time we’ll do it,” Roxanne persisted. But she had sounded weak, and she knew it.
Clive grinned. “What’s the matter? Are you in the building business?”
“No, but I’m interested. There’s so much money involved.”
“Yes, I know. For the contractors.”
“For the Greys, I meant.”
“Since when are you worried about the Greys’ finances?”
He looked amused. She knew it was because she had never talked about money before, and it didn’t fit his idea of her.
“Well,” she said, “now that I’m going to be a mother, I’m interested. Not worried, just interested.”
“Our baby will be well fed, clothed, housed, and loved. No problem,” he said, still amused.
“I was thinking, with Dan’s sister making all that trouble, I was thinking maybe you shouldn’t be so sure.”
The look of amusement turned to interest. “What do you know about Dan’s sister?”
Roxanne made a casual gesture, a little shrug. “Nothing much. Just that she’s a real troublemaker.”
“In what way?”
She began to feel uncomfortable, slightly flustered, trying to remember how much she might say without saying enough to entangle her.
“Well, she’s demanding a lot of money, isn’t she? Her share of the firm’s stock. And if you sell to those people, you’ll be able to pay her and get rid of her. It seems to me you should do it.”
“We’re not selling!” Clive’s voice rose. “Not if I can prevent it. I’m the holdout. I vote against it. I’ll tie things up in litigation for the next century if I have to. I don’t give a damn. Father does not want it, and I will not do this to him. It’s a disgrace. He doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. I’m ashamed of them all, my brother, Dan, Amanda, the whole lot of them. Ashamed.” He was almost breathless. Then suddenly he frowned, “How do you know all this, anyway? I never told you.”
Roxanne became aware of her heartbeat. She had gone too far, had said too much. “Why, it was in the newspapers. I read it in the newspapers.”
“No. There was nothing about Amanda’s demanding anything. There was never any mention of her name in the newspapers.”
“Well, I must be mixed up. I must be thinking of something I heard at Dan’s house.”
“Dan said those things? I’m amazed. It’s not like him to shoot his mouth off. When did this happen?”
“Not long ago. Only a couple of days, I guess, when I dropped in at Sally’s.” She had never seen Clive like this, never faced his keen scrutiny. And wanting to fill the silence, to divert that scrutiny, she stammered, “Yes. Yes, it was Wednesday, I guess.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Wednesday. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s very odd,” he said slowly, “because Dan flew to Scotland on Monday.”
Her heart was really pounding now. “Then it couldn’t have been Wednesday,” she said lightly. “I can’t remember everything I hear or see or do. Suppose I ask you or anybody what they did a week ago Friday. They won’t remember. People never do. A
nyway, what difference does it make?”
“Only that you’re lying to me, and I’m wondering why.”
“Clive Grey, I have never lied to you. ‘Lie’ is a nasty word. It’s rotten of you to accuse me like this. And such a fuss over who said what, when, and where. A stupid fuss. I’m going to bring the dessert, and let’s have it in peace.”
In the kitchen she stacked the plates, got out the cake plate, and poured the coffee. Her knees were absolutely weak. “You can do it,” Ian had assured her, but she had not done it. And Ian would be furious. Plainly, Clive had made up his mind. And now he, too, was angry at her. It was absurd that the anger of this sick weakling, clearly visible in his eyes, should so frighten her. Or maybe it was not absurd; she had, after all, so much to hide.
Then she decided to smile herself into a good humor. Smile and the world smiles with you. You start to feel better. It was possible that things weren’t as bad as Ian had made them out to be.… And she adopted a lively manner to joke Clive into a good humor.
“Here I come,” she cried, “Madame Roxanne of the Palace Bakery with a selection of eclairs, napoleons—” The telephone rang. “Sit still, sit still, dear. Let me put the tray down, and I’ll answer it.”
Clive had already crossed the room and picked up the phone. “Michelle! How nice to hear from you. Roxanne was telling me how well you’re doing. You have a Florida tan, she said. Be careful of your skin—”
Michelle. Quick, quick, before she says anything. And Roxanne reached the receiver, crying, “My sister! Let me talk to her.”
Clive was holding tight to the phone. “You what? You haven’t seen her yet, so how does she know? Wait a minute, let me get this straight.”
“Clive me the phone, Clive,” Roxanne insisted, with his elbow barring her.
“Then you did not meet Roxanne today. I see. A misunderstanding. Yes, of course. Well, it’s nice to talk to you. No, she can’t come to the phone this minute. She’ll call you back. Fine. Take care, Michelle.”
