David had looked at her with a strange smile. “Sure‚” he said. “If you like.”
It had been as easy as that; Barbara had moved her bed from the small room into David’s room, and put it next to his.
“I guess if we’re sleeping in the same room you want to have sex?” David said.
Barbara shrugged her shoulders. “That’s rather up to you.”
David nodded. “Yes, I guess it is.”
After that they made love almost every night in David’s bed; David always called it having sex.
“Do you like it?” Barbara asked him one night.
In the darkness David said, “What? Fucking?”
“Yes. Making love.”
“Sure, I like it.”
Barbara said softly, “You don’t do it because — oh, I don’t know — you don’t feel you have a duty, do you?”
David laughed in the darkness.
“Do you?” she repeated.
“If you’re not satisfied you don’t have to stay.”
“Would you be happy if I went?”
“Oh, Jesus. Will you please shut up.”
*
“Why do you live abroad?” she asked.
“I like to be a foreigner. And I love Italy.”
“Do you have any parents?”
“Yes.”
“Alive or dead?”
“I haven’t any idea.”
“Where did you meet Marcello?”
“In New York.”
“Did he suggest you come and live in Italy?”
“Why don’t you like Marcello? You jealous of him or something?”
“No.”
“Well then?”
“I think he’s a bit dull, and I think he’s a hypocrite.”
“Why, because he’s rich?”
“No.”
“What do you expect him to do about it if he is? What can he do about it?”
*
Two weeks after they had this conversation David had his twenty-ninth birthday, and went to Switzerland for a week with Marcello.
Soon after he returned, Barbara took him to meet Mary and Catherine Emerson.
“I want to meet these two mad women you work for,” he had said.
“There’s only one mad one, and that’s not the one I’m teaching.”
“Where’re they from?”
“Mary Emerson’s from Charleston, I think. Somewhere in the South. She’s all big and soft — you know, big hands, broad shoulders, big tits, big red hair. She has beautiful hair. She washes it almost every day in raw eggs. She’s a fine-looking woman, after fifty, I’d say.”
“And you hate her?”
“She’s so mean to Catherine always. And people like that shouldn’t be mean. If you’re big and lazy and opulent you should have big lazy and opulent opinions and manners. But she’s like some shriveled-up harpie with Catherine.”
“Perhaps Catherine deserves it.”
“How can she? I think she’s been like this all her life.”
“Then her mother resents her.”
“But there’s no reason to. She’s rich enough to find someone to look after Catherine the whole time, someone who’d take her away forever. She could live where she likes, do what she likes, and instead — she stays and they torment each other. It can’t be good for Catherine.”
“It can’t be good for her either. But perhaps up to now she’s always had to stay with the girl for some reason. Perhaps she’s planning to go away now, and she’s grooming you for the role of substitute mother. How’d you like that?”
“It’d be rather frightening. Because I’m sure Catherine’s never going to get completely better, and so however much one worked on her she’d always be a failure. It must be rather grim always having evidence of one’s failure in front of one’s eyes.”
David laughed. “We all have that, don’t we?”
“What do you mean?” Barbara said, but David just smiled at the ceiling and shook his head.
“I suppose it would be different if one could really love Catherine. I mean I love her, I think she’s a beautiful girl, but —”
“You feel sorry for her.”
“No. I think she’s sad in a way, but who knows? There’s something terribly fragile and innocent and almost — free, about Catherine. She’s like a moon or a planet that’s shot off into space, out of orbit. But she can’t reciprocate anything. She’s fond of me, I’m sure, but the thing is, for anyone to really save Catherine, loving her isn’t enough. They’d also have to get her to love them. And then it might not be hopeless.”
David laughed. “And so the world is redeemed by love. You are a good Christian.”
Barbara shook her head, and David said, “Anyway, I still want to meet them. Why don’t you take me up there tomorrow? You can say we’re going somewhere together afterward, and I’m waiting for you.”
*
They went next day, and David said he liked Mary Emerson. He also said he liked Catherine. They had talked together and walked round the rock garden for five minutes.
The next day, Mary Emerson told Barbara that she had found David very nice; when Barbara asked Catherine what she had thought of David, she only smiled and nodded. Then, later that afternoon she suddenly said in a brisk voice, “Yes, I found him most charming —” and then stopped, and looked confused, as if she had used a phrase that she had learned by heart, that she knew to be apt, but whose meaning she could not understand.
*
But if Mary and Catherine Emerson liked David, Barbara’s mother didn’t.
Barbara had written her, telling her that she was living with an American, that she was very happy, and that her move out of England had been the best thing she could have done.
Her mother wrote back and didn’t mention what Barbara had told her. “I’m so glad you have a flat‚” she wrote. “I have wanted to come to Rome all my life. I plan on coming for the month of July.”
Barbara wrote back that July was the hottest month in Rome, and that the apartment wasn’t big enough for guests. Her mother replied, “The heat has never bothered me, and if the apartment isn’t big enough I can easily stay in a hotel somewhere near you. Please book me a room.”
The morning she arrived David was at one of his meetings, so Barbara went alone to the airport. On the bus back into town she didn’t know how to start telling her mother about David, so she didn’t mention him. Her mother said how happy she was to finally be in Rome, and she hoped she would be able to see everything there was to see. Barbara took her to her hotel and they had lunch. Afterward they went to the apartment, her mother climbing the stairs very slowly.
“I don’t know if I’ll be coming to visit you very much if I have to climb all those stairs,” she said. She sat down, fat and exhausted, and Barbara could see her wet scalp through her thin, greasy hair.
David arrived at four. He smiled at Barbara’s mother and said, “So you made it up our stairs.”
Barbara’s mother nodded curtly. “Yes, thank you very much, David.”
“Did you have a good flight?” David asked.
She nodded again and said, “Yes, thank you very much, David. I’m quite used to flying, you know. I flew out to South America two years ago. My other daughter’s out there. She bought me a ticket.”
David nodded and looked amused. “Good‚” he said. He cleared his throat. “I guess you find it hot here after England.”
The fat, sweating woman said, “We’re having a very good summer in England.”
David nodded again and said, “Good.”
“Did anything happen today?” Barbara said.
David shook his head. “I made one brilliant suggestion and told two dirty jokes.”
“What do you do, David?” Barbara’s mother said.
“It’s sort of difficult to explain.”
“Well, I expect I’ll be capable of understanding.”
“I try to teach computers,” David said. “You see, you can teach a
computer to say —” he paused, grinned, and resumed in a monotone — ‘All — Jews — blacks — homosexuals — and — intellectuals — are — wicked —’ but you can’t get a computer to put that sentence together by itself, say it meaningfully. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Barbara sighed.
*
Later David said, “Your mother doesn’t approve of me.”
“You didn’t expect her to, did you? You tried your hardest to make her disapprove.”
“I don’t see why not. I don’t disapprove of her.”
“But you want her to disapprove of you.”
“Yes, I guess I do. It makes me feel — wicked. It amuses me!”
“You were behaving very childishly.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
The month passed, very hot and uncomfortable.
Whenever David was with Barbara’s mother he tried to amuse her, but she was not amused. Barbara tried to excuse David to her mother, but her mother always said, “I think David’s very nice.”
“You might think he’s very nice but you don’t approve of him, do you?” Barbara said.
“I don’t approve of him for you. He’s not your type.”
“Who is the right type for me?”
“Howard was.”
“Howard’s dead.”
“There are other Howards in the world.”
“I don’t want another Howard.”
Her mother sniffed. “It’s your funeral.” She sounded quite satisfied.
Ten days after her mother had gone, Barbara received a telegram from a hospital in London: “Have had heart attack. Please come home. Mother.”
She phoned the hospital. “Yes,” the doctor said, “your mother’s very ill.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Barbara told David.
“Well, you have to go home, don’t you?” David said. Then, seeing her look, “Oh for God’s sake.”
*
That evening she said, “David, I’ve been thinking. You wouldn’t like to go to the Emersons’ while I’m away, would you?”
“What am I going to do with the girl? I can’t see myself dancing.”
“You could teach her to read.”
“She really can’t read?”
“I don’t know. I think she can read the words, but she can’t put them together to make sense of them.”
“Exactly my line of work, you mean.”
“Well it is, isn’t it?”
“When am I going to do my work? And what happens when there are my meetings?”
“It’s only for two hours a day. And your meetings are always over by three, at the latest. Anyway, I’ll probably be back before your next round.”
“How much does the woman pay?”
“Ten dollars an hour.”
David nodded. “Well, I guess it might be interesting. Field work, sort of.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
“It depends if those two ladies want me, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, they’ll want you. I think they both liked you.”
“Perhaps Catherine doesn’t want to learn to read.”
“I don’t understand why she can’t. She’s so very slightly retarded. And she can chatter in Italian to the housekeeper, and watch the television quite happily.”
David laughed. “Oh, she’s sly. I’ll try and give you some answers when you come back.”
“Will you miss me?”
“Well, I guess I’ll be wearing the same clothes till you come back, and the house will get sort of dirty, and I’ll be spending my hard-earned dollars from Catherine on eating out.”
Barbara smiled. “What did you do before I —”
“Took over?” David said. “Oh — I managed.”
“Why,” Barbara said hesitantly, “do you live with me?”
“Rephrase the question. Why do you live with me?” He paused, and grinned. “Well, we get on O.K. mostly. Don’t we?”
“Is that all?”
“All?” David laughed. “That’s a lot. What more do you want!”
While she was in England, Barbara received two letters from David. The first arrived a week after she had left Rome.
Dear Barbara,
Greetings from the Emersons, madre e figlia. How are you, and how’s your mother? Life here is hot. I am not thinking at all. I go to Catherine in the afternoon and we sit and drink Pepsis, and in the morning I go to the beach. Everyone is away at the moment, though Marcello should be back next week.
Catherine is very interesting. I’m convinced that she is, above all, sly. We sit and I give her word games and I get her to read to me and she brings out the words like they were Chinese. But two days ago I thought I’d have some fun and I took along a book of Greek myths, and got her to read the bit about Electra; she stumbled and crashed along in her usual way, and at the end I asked her what she thought of it and she said she didn’t know, so I told her the whole story of the Trojan War and Agamemnon and the House of Atreus. She sat and listened, and then I told her about Orpheus and various other gods, and, just as I was about to go, she said, really intelligently, “Electra was quite right to want to kill her mother, wasn’t she?” I said, “I guess so,” and then she said, “You know my mother killed my father.”! Oh, Jesus! I said, “Did she, Catherine?” and then I said good-bye and got out of there quick. But yesterday she was all blank and wanted to read Beatrix Potter, so I didn’t ask her any more about her mother — just as well probably.
I wouldn’t put it past our lady from Charleston however. She’s a strange number, though I must say I don’t see her famous cruelty. She’s just rather casual. I think you must make her nervous, and she gives a show for you, and Catherine gets it. She does have one unfortunate habit I’ve noticed; she wanders into the room while Catherine and I are reading, and leans over me and strokes my hair; she does it like it was completely natural, as if she wanted to see what the book was, but it is not guaranteed to turn me on, and it makes Catherine mad — she glares at mother as if she were the Gorgon. She’s such a big thing, too — you were right about that, and I can picture her smiting the enemy host (or a husband or two) with a mighty sword. Also I don’t know what she does all day except wash her hair — she’s always announcing that she’s going out, and then turns up again after five minutes. I guess she goes out to water the Spanish moss and check the plantation. Oh, well. As you see I have no real news, so will stop this, but please hurry back and save me from the House of Emerson.
Look after yourself.
Love, David.
She received the second letter six weeks later.
Dear Barbara,
Sorry not to have written before, and thank you for all your letters, but you know how I am. Sorry to hear your mother’s no better. All’s well here; everyone has returned from their holidays and I’ve been writing articles, but must say I’m getting tired of this work — it’s frivolous in the wrong way. One day I guess I’ll just chuck it. What I shall do then, God knows.
The Emerson circus goes on. All well, and no more great revelations — no progress either. It’s not that it all goes in one ear and out the other — rather it goes in one ear and gets all confused and choked up inside. Mother has stopped the hair stroking bit — I’ve hardly seen her recently, in fact. When we do speak she usually just says something that she thinks is hilariously funny about Catherine, and then vanishes. But cruel or not, there really is an air of tension when mother and daughter are together — I must say I find it quite exciting. The only trouble is, on their own they’re both quite normal — in their strange ways. It’s a shame. You think you’ve found a real case of Southern gothic, and then the closer you look, it’s just another domestic nondrama. Pazienza. I’ll be glad when Catherine changes back from mental to physical movement; I’m sure it’s better for her, and I know it is for me.
Look after yourself.
Love, David.
Barbara said to Catherine, “I’ve been thinking about what you said yest
erday, about David going back to America. It’s impossible. He couldn’t have been going to bed with your mother, either. He wrote me a letter.” She paused, knowing she was speaking too quickly. “He wrote me that he didn’t like your mother. He liked you, but not your mother.”
Catherine looked sulky, and then appeared to be thinking. Finally she came out with, “Well, even if they didn’t go to bed together, mother wanted to. I know she did.” She stopped, and thought some more. “Then — if David —” she paused, and smiled. “Then she’s killed him,” she said quickly. “Don’t you see? She killed my father, and now she’s killed David.”
4
It was Wednesday night, and rain was pouring. Barbara had sat at home alone, listening to the rain and wondering where David was, until she felt that if she didn’t go out she would dissolve and become part of the wet darkness.
She considered going to the cinema, but she didn’t like to go alone; she wondered if there was a concert, but knew that even if there was, she wouldn’t go. She wanted to be with someone, to be somewhere warm, and to talk; she wanted to talk about David. She sat alone and thought about Marcello, with his red-and-peach-painted rooms, his unbrushed hair, his expensive clothes, and his ridiculous opinions; and about his relationship with David, which she had never dared ask about, and in which she had always pretended she was not interested.
She telephoned Marcello and asked if he was alone; then she asked if she could come over. “I’d like to see you,” she said, though she knew he must think she was lying. She wanted to see him because he had been closer to David than anyone else — closer, possibly, than her, though she didn’t want to know this for sure — but more than this, she wanted to see him because, though everything about him irritated her, she found him exciting. She had never admitted this to anyone, above all not to David, but now that she was alone she admitted it to herself.
She found Marcello exciting for the same reason that she hated him. She felt insulted by him. The professor of philosophy was all there — he was solid, he belonged. Oh, he could let dust gather on the floor and on the books, and he could ignore it if someone dropped a bit of burning ash on one of his chairs; but in spite of his amateur wall-painting and political posters, he gave her the impression of something safe and strong. Marcello could insult the world as much as he liked without getting thrown out. He could hold whatever political opinions he liked; he could be as hypocritical, false, stupid, biased, and boring as he liked; but he would still always belong.
The Girl Who Passed for Normal Page 6
