Corporation Wife

by Catherine Gaskin

  ‘Oh … well, yes! Of course!’ He fidgeted. ‘Well … it’s hard to remember the old ‘Leaven’ from this version. This is pure Hollywood.’ Then he shrugged. ‘And who’s to quarrel with that? This baby’s raking in money, and they’ll love it in Des Moines. It’s going to run another three-four weeks here. I don’t mind taking those cheques at all, even if it isn’t art.’

  She made herself smile, although she felt a freezing coldness within her. ‘You don’t sound like a Pulitzer Prize winner ‒ not with all this concern about money and be damned to quality.’

  ‘Since when haven’t I been concerned about money? I tell you, Laura, a Pulitzer is a great thing, and I’m proud as all hell of it ‒ but better not try to pay the grocery bills with it for long.’

  He pushed open the door for her, and she passed by him to the outer lobby. He went on talking.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I haven’t changed all that much with the years ‒ still as commercial as ever.’

  She softened a little, because with his mention of passing years he seemed to be recalling their own time together. She glanced sideways at him as they walked together towards the glass street-doors.

  ‘You never were as commercial as you make yourself sound, Larry.’

  He laughed. ‘Well, keep quiet about it, won’t you? It might not go well with me next time I make a contract.’ The laugh sounded genuine, as if he were comfortable with her. She was grateful for it, grateful for even this slim evidence of closeness and contact in the horrible loneliness of the day. Larry knew everything there was to know about her ‒ in a sense he had created her ‒ and she wanted to feel that he thought well of what he had produced. It would be something to have Larry think well of her. She permitted herself to smile at the thought.

  He must have caught the smile, brief as it was. Suddenly, before they reached the doors, he touched her arm and turned her gently towards himself.

  ‘How goes it with you, Laura? All right?’ He added, as a kind of afterthought, ‘You look wonderful.’

  She wished he didn’t stare at her so directly, a stare that didn’t allow her eyes to waver from his. ‘Things are fine, Larry ‒ just fine!’

  ‘I heard somewhere that you’re doing a show for Phil Conrad. Nice work!’

  ‘Not yet,’ she told him quickly. ‘It isn’t final yet. It’s an Amtec show … there are a lot of angles involved.’

  He nodded. ‘I know … there are always so many things before the real job can be done.’ He paused, frowning. ‘You know, I ‒’ He stopped again, searching for words, but he seemed to want to go on talking.

  Impulsively, rashly, she broke in. ‘Larry, what are we doing standing here talking? Let’s go find ourselves a place to sit down ‒ let’s have a drink. I’m staying at the Plaza …’

  Her voice trailed away as she realised she had said the wrong thing. At once his air of friendly preoccupation left him; the brisk, Larry-manner slapped back into place. She had presumed too far, had pushed her loneliness on him ‒ asked for companionship ‒ and he was instantly wary and suspicious, not wanting to be dragged, through pity, into a kind of one-sided emotional involvement.

  ‘Say ‒ I’ll have to take a raincheck on that one, Laura. I’m kind of late for an appointment right now.’

  It had been very one-sided, she saw. She had been guilty of a grave error in judging his attitude towards her. She had mistaken friendliness for a much more personal concern. Larry didn’t regard her with bitterness or dislike; he was simply indifferent to her. So far away from her was he in thought that he had been startled and a little shocked when she had revealed the residue of her attachment to him, the desire to recall things that were past. For him the past he had shared with her was not just dead, but forgotten.

  He bustled her through the glass doors and out on to the sidewalk. At the kerb he whistled into the passing traffic for a taxi.

  ‘In fact, I’m on my way home right now,’ he said, speaking quickly as if he had to find something to say. ‘I have just about all my business meetings at the apartment now because Mary’s on the verge of giving birth.’

  ‘Mary …?’

  ‘Well, sure,’ he said, grinning broadly. ‘Didn’t you know I was about to become a father? Isn’t that a kick? Can you imagine me with a kid? It scares the hell out of me, and yet I’m tickled pink with the idea. I’ll bet I’ll make a terrible father ‒ poor kid!’

  A cab drew up, and Larry reached over and opened the door. Before she got in Laura turned back to him.

  ‘Funnily enough, I think you’ll make a good father. It will be a fortunate baby.’

  ‘Well, thanks!’ He raised his hat as she settled herself. ‘Good to see you again, Laura. You’re looking wonderful …’

  The words were said with the heartiness of indifference, and he probably didn’t know he had said them before ‒ and wouldn’t care if he did. Glancing back as the cab moved away she saw that Larry’s gaze did not follow her. He was whistling for another taxi, and in his impatience she saw that he had forgotten her already. She huddled back in the corner of the cab, feeling the chill of the October evening.

  She bought all the late edition newspapers and carried them up to her room, intending to order dinner there since she didn’t want to eat alone in a restaurant. It was while she was drinking the first martini that she saw the item in one of the columns. Phil Conrad in London to catch the new Sherman play, is currently being shown the town by actress Katryn Franklin. Laura choked for a minute on the liquor, and then swallowed the rest of it in a gulp.

  Fifteen

  Mal’s call came early on one of those clear, bright autumn mornings when the blueness and clarity of the sky over the lake and hills was almost harsh. The fierce tide of fall colours had swept over the countryside, too spectacular not to hold the gaze unless you have seen it many times, as Harriet had, and when it seems nothing of itself ‒ only a herald of winter, and the spring beyond holds little of hope or expectation. Harriet felt only its sadness. Mal was going to South Africa the next day; he would be gone for three weeks or a month. He had called to tell her that he was coming to Burnham Falls that day, not on business for Amtec, but for the sole purpose of seeing her.

  He had said he would call for her about noon. She went through the morning routine with outward calmness, but the familiar excitement and disturbance which Mal always brought with him had possessed her already. Heaven knows, she thought, their times together were rare enough. He had been on the West Coast for two weeks, and there had been, in fact, only one meeting since the day they had sat and talked by the lake ‒ the day they had kissed. And even that single meeting had been frustrating and futile; they had met for lunch and talked across a table in a fashionable and crowded restaurant in Manhattan, and afterwards, in an effort to break through to the mood of freedom that had been theirs on that other day, they walked for a while in Central Park. Harriet was glad Mal hadn’t suggested going back to his hotel. They would have gone to bed together, and it would have proved nothing. They had much farther to go in their journey backwards through time before they would again reach that point. Only once Mal had possessed her, strongly and beautifully, that night in the desert. He had won her then, mind and body, for the rest of her life. To use each other physically now, casually and as yet uncommitted, in the anonymous atmosphere of a hotel bedroom, would be to risk what had been gained then. Theirs would have to be a permanent relationship, exclusive and single-minded, or it would not exist at all. They were too far gone for flirtation, and as yet neither was ready to say in plain words what the alternative was to be.

  This knowledge had been with them when they parted, and Harriet knew it was the reason why Mal had not called her for more than a week after he had got back from the Coast. Steve had mentioned that Mal had been at the Laboratories, but he had not come to see her. Now there was this call, and the calm, purposeful tone of Mal’s voice. He had reached some decision during this absence, and he was coming to tell her.

 
; She dressed herself in a skirt and sweater and flat-heeled shoes. Mal had said, ‘I’d like to eat out of doors somewhere. Don’t worry about food ‒ I’ll bring everything.’ She paused to take stock to herself a moment as she dressed, wondering if she didn’t still look a little too much like the image her father had made her into ‒ the cashmere sweater, the matching skirt of beautiful, subtle tweed. This was how she had dressed when Mal had first known her. Then she shrugged. It was also the day-time uniform of the executive’s wife ‒ discreet, understressed, and expensive. She flipped a comb through her hair, which crackled with vitality, and in the sunlight which fell across it, even caught again the old red tints which seemed mostly to be missing of late. She was glad they were going to meet out of doors. She wanted Mal to see the red still in her hair, the fine complexion that glowed when she applied the vivid lipstick, her slim figure that in the sweater and skirt didn’t look so very different from the younger Harriet’s. Then, with her hand still holding the lipstick, she suddenly sobered. Whatever they felt about each other, they could not deceive themselves about the true facts ‒ even for a few hours. She leaned closer into the glass and examined herself carefully. Let Mal also see the part of her that was not so young. The strong sunlight would seek out and reveal the faint lines that had come under her eyes and those grey hairs running back from her temples. They should not pretend, either of them, that they could go back to that other time and pick up where they had left off. The years in between counted, and there were marks in both their faces to tell them so.

  She grabbed a handbag and ran downstairs when she heard the car in the drive.

  Mal was mostly silent during the drive ‒ not grim, just silent, as if he didn’t want distraction from his own thoughts. He answered her questions about the South American trip briefly. He was going as a consultant for an American firm which was opening branches in Caracas and Buenos Aires. Though he spoke of it lightly she sensed his pleasure in the thought of movement, the readiness to pack his bags and for a time become part of another scene. He had not changed so much, she thought. He would always be something of the boy who had walked away from Burnham Falls in such a hurry.

  They drove on Route 40 for about five miles, and then on 211 for a while. He didn’t say where they were going, and Harriet wondered if he had any definite plan. She didn’t ask him because it was more pleasant to just sit and leave the decision to him. He had put the top back on the rented convertible, and the sun fell warmly on her bones, and the wind whipped her hair across her eyes. She loved the feeling of youth and irresponsibility that came with driving in an open car on these empty roads on a weekday when everyone else was working.

  She was startled almost when Mal turned suddenly off 211 on to a winding dirt road. It was many years since she had been here; she couldn’t consciously have remembered its existence. This road ran along the back of the Farmington Reservoir, and came to a dead end; it was a service road that led to the sluice gates, and was travelled only by the odd workman, and the local people who came to fish. Mal parked the car where the road ended near the sluice gates.

  He smiled a little as he looked down at her shoes. ‘I’m glad you came prepared to walk,’ he said. He took a small canvas grip out of the trunk of the car, pulled off his jacket and slung it across his shoulder. ‘Can you make it up there?’ he said.

  She saw that he meant the high point of the hill above them, a grey tumble of boulders that stood out with stark bareness from the brilliant colour of the woods about them. There was no road there; they would have to fight their way through the tangle of timber and brush. ‘I’ll make it,’ she answered.

  He didn’t say any more, but started off ahead of her. They walked in silence all the way. She followed closely in his path, watching how he found the easiest way through the woods, skirting the places where the brush was almost impenetrable, zig-zagging up the slope to ease the climb. Although they were completely surrounded by timber he never hesitated about the direction. He was so sure and quick that Harriet, following, thought it might have been possible to believe he had been here only last week. She was breathless when she gained the top a little behind him, but he wasn’t even breathing deeply. He put down the bag and his coat, and turned to look about him. The view of the reservoir and the valley was superb ‒ the colours of the woods dramatic and strong, the water the deep clear blue it had at no other time of the year. Mal stood looking at it for a few moments, nodding his head a couple of times as if he were pleased with what his memory had told him was here. Then he put his arm about her shoulders, and drew her slightly in front of him; the gesture was encircling and protective. She pressed against him, firmly, confidingly.

  Mal’s New York hotel had prepared a picnic lunch for him, and it was elegant, and wryly out of place. He laughed as he unpacked it ‒ the thinly-sliced chicken, the crisp rolls, the half-bottle of good bourbon. ‘They don’t want you to rough it,’ he said as he took scrubbed salad vegetables out of plastic containers.

  Harriet examined her torn stockings. ‘No ‒ they don’t,’ she said.

  While they ate they were a little distant with each other. It was a time of waiting. Harriet knew Mal would choose his own time to tell her why he had come. She accepted the waiting.

  They finished their meal with cheese and apples. They sat within the shelter of a tall boulder where the sun was warm and the wind did not reach them. Occasionally a little collection of cloud drifted across the sky, and for a moment the sun was lost. The shadows of the clouds were a deeper blue on the lake.

  Mal offered her a cigarette, took one himself, and lighted them both. He frowned over his first draw.

  ‘I suppose you know why I’ve come?’

  She shrugged. ‘Should I?’

  ‘You might know.’ He looked at her quickly. ‘You’ve always been so damned patient. You always look as if you could afford to wait half a century before satisfying your curiosity. I can’t think of any other woman who could have waited all this time without asking a single question.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ve found that people usually act in their own time ‒ they do their own deciding. Especially Mal Hamilton. So what’s the point in being impatient?’

  ‘That’s your trouble,’ he said with a touch of annoyance. ‘You always wait for other people to act, and they end up by not expecting you to have any power to act on your own.’

  Her voice grew a little tense. ‘What exactly do you mean?’

  ‘I mean it would have done your soul good if you’d called me in New York and given me hell for not writing and not coming to see you. You ask for too little.’

  She was shaken. ‘I’m afraid to ask for anything. I’m afraid …’

  He put his hand over hers, lying on the warm rock. ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘Of you ‒ of myself. Afraid of reaching out to grab in case you might decide to shake me off. Afraid to make any move because it might be the wrong one. If I left things to … drift, perhaps you might stay a while. If I pushed ‒ or demanded, you might go.’

  He put his hand up and touched her shoulder, shaking her with rough impatience. ‘But you must know that you and I can’t drift, Harriet. The time for that is long gone.’

  ‘What else is there?’

  ‘We could get married.’

  He spoke the words very firmly, very calmly. She drew in her breath sharply, her eyes widened.

  ‘Do you mean it, Mal? Do you mean … married?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ His tone was terse, as if he were dealing with someone who was stupid and obstinate. ‘We’d only be doing what we should have done a long time ago. When I let you go back to Steve I thought it was what you really wanted to do. I know now that if I’d insisted ‒ if I’d made myself stronger than Steve, you’d have stayed with me. You were just following a blind habit of obedience. You were waiting for someone else to act. It was Steve who acted … he came back to life, and you went to him as meekly as you’ve always done everything.’

 
She put her hands to her forehead, blocking out the sight of him, the sun, the lake, the woods about them. ‘Stop it, Mal! Stop it! You’re being cruel and mean. You know there was no other choice for me then ‒ nothing else I could do.’

  ‘There was something else you could have done. But it was harder than the way you chose. You slid out of it, Harriet. You just accepted what came.’

  She took her hands away from her face. ‘Don’t go on talking, Mal! There’s no point to it. What’s the use of the regrets, the blame, the accusations? What use? I haven’t anything to offer you, Mal. I haven’t anything to offer except the tangles and problems of a woman too deep in marriage ever to get out. A woman with children … with responsibilities and obligations. I have nothing to offer but trouble.’

  ‘I might take that offer,’ he said. ‘I just might take it. Try me.’

  She gestured to silence him. ‘Don’t taunt me, Mal. I can’t take it now.’

  There was silence between them for some minutes. In the woods below them somewhere a pair of crows called harshly, and rose up suddenly from the trees ‒ great black birds, ugly, whose plumage flashed briefly in the sun before they disappeared back into the foliage. Harriet saw them, and shivered.

  Mal drew hard on his cigarette. ‘I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, Harriet,’ he said. ‘To-morrow I’m on my way South, and I’ll be gone the best part of a month. During that time Amtec will be told that I’m no longer available for consultation.’

  Startled, she turned to him. ‘But why ‒?’

  ‘The first step of the way out,’ he answered. ‘Whatever your answer is to me, Harriet, I want you to know that I won’t be working for Amtec again. I won’t come to Burnham Falls again.’

  She said slowly, ‘You can do it … just like that.’

  ‘That’s the kind of freedom I’ve won for myself,’ he said. ‘At one time I damn’ near lost my shirt for that kind of freedom, but it’s mine now. I’ve the right now to say where and when and what I’ll work at.’