Barbara Greer

by Stephen Birmingham

  ‘Hm?’ Nancy said, opening her eyes.

  ‘Please, let’s go to bed. I’ve got to take Carson to the airport at seven o’clock. It’s half-past one now.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Nancy said. ‘Must go to bed. Did you think I’d passed out? I hadn’t. I was just thinking.’

  ‘What were you thinking?’

  Nancy smiled. ‘About Woody. Does he still have that wonderful blond, wavy hair?’

  ‘Yes. Now, please—let’s get to bed.’

  ‘Not getting bald or anything?’

  ‘No, not getting bald or anything.’

  Nancy sat up now. ‘I promise, cross my heart, not to have an affair with him, Barbara. I promise, cross my heart.’

  ‘All right. Now let’s—’

  ‘Let’s have another little drink, shall we?’

  ‘Oh, please, Nancy!’

  Nancy tossed her head back and laughed. ‘Oh, Miss Sobersides! Miss Solomon J. Sobersides! Scold, scold, scold! Just like old Miss Whosis, what’s-her-name, at college, the one with the enormous buzzooms! ‘Girls, girls, girls! Watch your language, please, girls!’ What was that old fart’s name? You know, the one with the enormous—’

  ‘Miss Abernathy,’ Barbara said. ‘Now let’s go to bed.’

  ‘Do you know who gave me my very first drink, Barb? Do you? It was your father—your own father! Oh, I love your father, Barb. How is he? I’ll never forget. Do you know how I remember? You and I were both sixteen. I’d come down to the farm with you for the weekend. We were going to a dance, remember? And all at once, the night of the dance, it was something I ate or other, and I broke out in absolutely enormous hives! Remember? I was miserable. I was so miserable. I couldn’t go to the dance. You went. I stayed behind. And your father—your wonderful father—came into the room where I was lying in absolute agony and said to me: ‘Nancy, what you need is a nice, stiff drink.’ And he fixed me the nicest, stiffest drink I ever had. It was my very first.’ She smiled and picked up her empty glass. ‘I’ll always remember that first one. He was always a bit of a lush, your father—even then. A very, very nice lush. Oh, of course I’ve had many, many drinks since then. Like affairs. I’ve had many, many affairs, too. I’ve lost count. All I have is affairs. I wonder why I have so many affairs.’ She stared darkly and intently at the side of the glass, bringing her face close to it, stroking the side of it hard with her thumbnail. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall …’

  ‘I don’t know, Nancy, but honestly we must get to bed. Come on. In the morning we can talk some more.’

  ‘Of course you’ve had affairs, too,’ Nancy said, still gazing at the glass. Perhaps it’s normal. I don’t know. I remember you in Hawaii, and then, even later, after you married Carson I remember you telling me about affairs—’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I haven’t had any affairs—as you call it—since I married Carson. So come to bed.’

  Nancy Rafferty looked up, startled. ‘Oh, but that’s not true! What about that time you told me? You know—about you and Barney, your sister’s husband.’

  Barbara laughed shortly. ‘I never had an affair with Barney!’

  ‘But you told me! Or you told me that you considered it anyway!’

  ‘I didn’t even consider it.’

  ‘But you told me! I know you told me!’

  ‘I didn’t tell you anything of the sort,’ Barbara said. ‘What I told you was—well, I’m sorry I even told you if you’re going to attach that sort of meaning to it!’ Her voice was rising angrily. ‘There was nothing like that between me and Barney. It was just—just nothing. For God’s sake, now, come to bed!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ Nancy said. ‘Sorry I brought it up. But I remembered you told me something. Oh, I know why it is. You’re pretty. You always were. Pretty—prettier than me.’ She picked up the glass again. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall? Who is the fairest of us all? Barbara Woodcock! Fairest—of—us—all!’ She pounded her feet if in rhythm to the words.

  There was a sound. Barbara turned. Carson was standing in the doorway in his pyjamas and yellow terry bathrobe; on the breast pocket of the robe were his initials in black—C.V.G. His hair was tousled and his face was clouded with sleep and anger. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you two ever coming to bed? Do you know what time it is? Do you know I’ve got to get up in the morning?’

  ‘Car-son!’ Nancy cried gaily. ‘Come join us! Fix us all a drink!’

  ‘Don’t you know it’s late? Don’t you know it’s damned near two?’ He thrust his fist into the pockets of the terry robe. This caused the robe to fall open at the middle and Barbara suddenly saw that the front of his pyjamas, also, was open.

  Nancy saw it too. ‘One o’clock in the pyjama factory!’ she cried.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Carson said in disgust, turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

  ‘Carson!’ Barbara called.

  ‘He forgets I work in a hospital,’ Nancy said. ‘I’ve seen worse things than that—’

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Barbara said.

  ‘All right, all right!’ Nancy stood up, somewhat unsteadily. She performed, then, a few little tap-dance steps in front of the sofa. ‘Put your little foot, put your little foot, put your little foot right down!’ she sang in a wavery voice. Then she said, ‘Good night, Barb.’ She turned and started toward the hall.

  ‘You’re in the guest room,’ Barbara said.

  ‘I can find it. Nitey-night!’

  Nancy walked slowly down the hall. Barbara heard the guest room door open, then close with a bang.

  One of the boys—Michael?—cried out softly in his sleep.

  ‘Damn her!’ Barbara said, and her eyes filled with hot tears.

  She started around the room, rapidly emptying ash trays into the silent butler, picking up the glasses, turning off the lamps. She carried the two glasses into the kitchen and placed them in the sink. She put the Scotch bottle back in the cupboard. Then she turned off the kitchen lights.

  The house was dark now, except for the hall light.

  She went down the hall and softly pushed open the door of the boys’ room. Using only the light from the hall, she tiptoed across the room. Michael was out of his covers. Gently she lifted the blanket. She hesitated, then reached down, under his sleepers, checking his diaper. He was dry. She covered him then, tucking the blanket tightly around his shoulders. She went to Dobie’s bed and looked down at him. He was covered, asleep.

  She went out into the hall, closed the door, and turned off the light.

  In the dark she went on to her own room, let herself in, and closed the door behind her. In the darkened room she heard Carson’s steady breathing.

  She found the small light beside her dressing table and turned it on. With a piece of tissue paper, she blotted her lipstick. Then she sat down at the dressing table in front of her dim reflection in the mirror and began to brush her hair. She lifted her hair, a bit at a time, and rolled each strand into a flat curl with her fingers. She spread bobby pins with her teeth (she had been taught never to do this, but was there any other way?) and secured each curl tight against her head.

  Behind her, Carson said, ‘She gets nuttier by the day, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Barbara said.

  ‘Why do you put up with her?’

  ‘She’s an old friend,’ she said simply.

  ‘I’ve got old friends. They don’t act like that.’

  ‘I know.’

  She finished putting up her hair and turned off the light. She undressed in the dark, placing her clothes across the chair. Then she got into bed beside him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Gracious living!’ he said.

  ‘Please. I feel sorry for her.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘She told me the most dreadful thing this afternoon. Do you want to know what she told me?’

  ‘Not very much.’

  ‘She’s had this—this affair with a doctor. Not the Jewish one she
mentioned, but another one. She got pregnant by him.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  ‘She wanted an abortion. He said he could do it himself—knew how, that is—but he wouldn’t. He said he’d help pay for it. Not pay for it—just help pay! He sent her to someone he knew—not even a doctor but some old horrible nurse who’d been in jail once. Nancy went to her. The nurse did it in her kitchen. How horrible! The nurse’s old mother was right in the room, smoking a cigarette and playing solitaire! Then the old mother had to come—to hold Nancy down. The nurse said, “If you scream I’ll hit you.” And Nancy did scream and the nurse hit her and blacked her eye. Oh, Carson! I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so horrible ever, in my whole life!’

  ‘Well,’ Carson said, ‘yes. It is horrible. But typical.’

  ‘Oh, darling, don’t say that!’

  ‘It is, though.’

  ‘Afterward, something—an infection—developed. She went to the hospital. They cut her all up, Carson. It ended up being a hysterectomy!’

  For a while they lay silently in the darkness.

  Then Barbara said, ‘Carson?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How temporary is this place? Locustville.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How temporary? How many more years?’

  ‘Two or three.’

  ‘Oh, God! That’s not temporary. That’s forever!’

  There was another silence. Then: ‘Are you crying?’

  ‘No.’

  And then there was another, longer silence.

  Then Barbara said, ‘Carson? We’re not like that, are we? We’re not horrible or sordid or anything like that, are we? We have two beautiful children, don’t we, and there’s really nothing unhappy about our lives, is there? There’s nothing mean or selfish or cruel …’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said.

  ‘Of course not,’ she repeated. Then, ‘Oh, I wish you weren’t going away tomorrow!’

  ‘So do I. But I’ve got to.’

  ‘You were right,’ she said, ‘this afternoon in the car. I was wrong, Carson. I shouldn’t have let her stay. I see that now, Carson. She ruined our last evening together. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘It isn’t. I’m sorry and I’m sorry I complained about Locustville tonight. I know we’ll leave eventually, and as you always say, when we’re here we should try to be happy …’

  ‘Yes.’ he said.

  ‘And we are happy, aren’t we? Most of the time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you were right to remember the rules,’ she said.

  A little later she put her arms around him. ‘Are you awake?’ she asked.

  But he was asleep.

  Her eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness.

  The nights in Locustville, Pennsylvania were certainly the most beautiful time. They had, in summer at least, much of the quality of Italian nights that she remembered from trips to Europe, summer trips, with her mother and father when she was a girl. Italian—in that the darkness had a colour to it, a prismatic, purplish colour. From the bedroom which faced a corner of the patio and which took in a view, from the wide windows, of the town below, the sky held an aurora of light from the town and it was possible, very possible, from the dark bedroom through the silent window, to dream that the city was not Locustville, Pennsylvania—not Locustville, but—

  Naples!

  Naples, and she was a girl on a hill above it. And those swirling deeps below which were actually long yellow fields of farms and darkened houses, they were crests and waves and combers of the sea! Holding this impossible image in her mind she closed her eyes, trapping it there, pressing it like a flower between the pages of a book.

  She thought about the farm.

  Once, when she was a little girl, she had been helping her mother transplant clumps of violets from behind the house, moving them into the garden. Her mother had suddenly sat back upon her heels, dropped her trowel, and looked at the fingers of her outstretched hand. The diamond from her engagement ring, the centre diamond, had fallen from the prongs that held it.

  They had stayed there all afternoon, looking for it, going back and forth over every inch of earth, looking under every leaf, patting the earth, crumbling it in their fingers, and, when they were tired, stopping for a minute to wipe their hands on their clothes. Her mother kept closing her eyes, trying to imagine where it might be. When it was nearly dark, he mother’s face had been streaked and dirty. Then suddenly she cried, ‘I see it!’ and plunged her hand into the grass. ‘No, it’s only a drop of dew!’ she said. She sat there on her knees and began to cry, and Barbara, who always started to cry when her mother did, cried too. And her mother had pulled her into her arms and said, ‘There, there. There, there,’ over and over again. ‘It’s lost, that’s all there is to it. That’s all there is to it.’

  For weeks afterwards, whenever she went out of the house alone, she searched for her mother’s diamond, careful not to let a drop of dew fool her. Finally, after she had spent most of one summer that way, looking only in tht one spot behind the house where they had been digging up violets, she began looking farther afield in places where her mother might have been. And the next summer, the place had nothing to do with it. She looked for the diamond wherever she might be, whenever she happened to think of it. She let her cousin Woody deWinter in on the secret and when they played together one of them would suddenly say, ‘Let’s look for the diamond!’ Immediately they would separate, running in different directions, shouting that they had just thought of a place where they had not looked. And when they returned, one of them might pretend that he had found it, or that they had found another diamond, a different one, and after a while they lost interest in the game and forgot about the diamond altogether. Years later, Barbara had been sitting with her mother on the terrace behind the house and suddenly thought of it again. ‘Remember the day you lost your diamond?’ she asked her. ‘Did you ever find it?’ ‘No,’ her mother said, smiling, holding up her ring finger, ‘but it was insured; I got a new one that I really think I like better.’

  Woody had been practically her only playmate at the farm. Woody lived several miles away but his mother brought him over frequently, especially during the summer. The farm had a swimming pool and Woody’s house, which was closer to town, did not. Barbara and Woody had been taught to swim together by a Yale boy named Danny, who was also a lifeguard and who came to the Woodcocks’ pool two afternoons a week to earn extra summer money. ‘Keep your faces down … keep your shoulders even with the water …’ she could remember clearly Danny’s somewhat flat voice saying. She had carried on, over the course of several summers, a fantasy love affair with Danny in which he courted her elaborately with flowers and boxes of candy. Woody, too, had worshipped Danny and they planned, together once, to adopt Danny and take him with them wherever they went for the rest of their lives. He would be very happy with them, they were sure, because they would treat him only with the utmost deference and respect, always. Once, when he had not seemed to return their admiration for him, Barbara and Woody had even attempted to kidnap him.

  Barbara and Woody had systematically excluded Peggy, Barbara’s sister, who was five years younger, from all their play and secrets. The girls had had a governess then, Fraulein Ungewitter, and try as the Fraulein might, there was no way that she could get all three children to play together. That was how it happened that Barbara and Woody had been alone in the nursery with Fraulein Ungewitter the day Fraulein Ungewitter suddenly died, and Peggy had been in another part of the house. Fraulein Ungewitter was very tall and thin, with a face that always looked bright and polished and oiled; her hair was a clear, metallic grey and she kept it always in a black hair net. That afternoon Barbara and Woody had been playing in the nursery and Fraulein Ungewitter had come in from the bathroom, holding the black hair net in her hand, the long grey hair loose around her shoulders. ‘My hair!’ she had said, and her face
had been pale. ‘What’s happened to it? It’s turned grey!’ It was apparently the first time she had noticed the change, though it had been grey for longer than Barbara could remember, and Fraulein held up the black hair net wordlessly as if to show that the fibres no longer matched. Then—whether from the shock of the discovery or not they never knew—she pitched forward on her hands, cried out, and was dead. Barbara and Woody stood silently looking at her fallen body for several minutes, then they both began to scream.

  They were hurried out of the house. At first they were only awed and frightened. Then, convinced that what they had seen was real, they began to feel somewhat joyous—mischievous and evil, lucky to have witnessed some spectacular human event. The new mood crept over them and seized them completely. (How many twelve-year-old children have had a person go through the swift steps of dying right before their eyes?) Excited, feeling wise, knowing now all there was to know about death, having seen it happen, they discussed it in whispers behind the house. Woody had seen a cat, once, going through some sort of mouth-foaming fit, then dying, which he told about.

  They wandered away from the house that was by this time too busy and distraught to wonder where the children were, and walked across the wide back lawn to where the bridle path began, down the hill, under the slim iron-wood and maple branches, past the skeletons of the two tall, blighted chestnut trees, and into the woods, where immediately a swarm of mosquitoes rose to meet them. They raced from the mosquitoes, clambered across the rocks and trunks of fallen trees, under the rusted tangle of barbed wire that had enclosed some long-ago pasture, to the brook that held, clasped between two slim arms, a tiny island. It was their secret island. On it, in beds made of leaves and grass, they kept their collection of dolls, sheltered from the weather by a piece of old canvas. They raised the canvas and looked at the sleeping dolls; then they made their selection. Among the muddy green of cowslips, adder’s-tongue and wild arbutus that grew on the island, they dug a grave in which they placed with solemn ceremony, an imaginary Fraulein. Woody spoke a few words … Ashes to ashes.