by May Sarton
“Hey,” Johnny said after they had showered and were having a coke at the bar. “The joker’s wild today … what got into you anyway? You were out for blood!”
“Not your blood, Johnny!”
“You scared me.”
“Did I?” Ned laughed, but it came out more like a sob. “Not enough to keep you from winning anyway. And I wanted to win.”
“Whatever it was that made you so mad, you played a fierce, fast game, old boy. I tell you,” Johnny wiped his glasses and put them on again, “you were pretty formidable.”
“But you won.” Ned knew it was childish to mind as much as he did, but he did mind.
“It seemed as though you wanted to beat the wall down! I mean … beyond the game … your ball went wild. That’s what scared the shit out of me.”
Ned shook his head as though to shake obsession off. “Well,” he said after swallowing half the glass of coke. “It just goes to show that anger may rev up the motor but then overcharges it, I guess. You can’t win that way.”
Ned blinked and looked at Johnny for the first time, that plain open face, sandy hair, not a mean thought in the old boy with whom he had played football at Exeter, and smiled a sheepish smile. Exhaustion had crept in now.
“You were awfully mad at something—that’s for sure.”
They had known each other for years. Ned liked being with Johnny because Johnny was so easygoing, easy with himself, one of the few men Ned ever saw who was not ridden by ambition. He had done reasonably well as a corporation lawyer in his father’s firm, had married happily and had three children, a pair of twins and an older daughter.
“Don’t you ever get mad at anything, Johnny? Don’t you ever want to break down a wall?”
“Of course I do. I don’t know what this is all about, Ned, but I’m kind of glad you can get that het up. You’re such a controlled person, you know, it makes you more human. Sally says I have a terrible temper, if you must know.”
“Really? I thought you two were like a Philippina in an almond, two in one.
“We are, I guess. But that doesn’t mean we never fight.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Come on, Ned, you weren’t born yesterday. There’s some anger in any close relationship. Sometimes I think that’s healthy. It clears the air, Hey, don’t look at me as though I were crazy! I mean it.”
Ned twisted the glass round and round on the counter as though it were a mathematical equation. “I was brought up to regard anger as a sin, for which one paid a very high price afterward in guilt. I hate it. For me anger is a poison. I can’t see it as healthy whatever you say, Johnny.”
“O.K., then maybe you worked out some of the poison today.”
Ned shook his head and was silent. He just couldn’t talk to anybody about Anna. Not even good old Johnny who, he was quite aware, had opened the door for him to do so.
“See you next week, Johnny. I’d better be getting along. Fonzi will be waiting for his walk.”
“Anna not home?”
“Oh, she’s in Pittsburgh …”
“Well, so long, old boy. Good luck!”
After Johnny left, Ned sat on for a few minutes, too tired suddenly to move. Anger “healthy”? He felt sick.
Chapter X
Anna got home early in the afternoon, to be welcomed by an ecstatic Fonzi and an otherwise silent and empty apartment. She had half hoped that Ned might have left a note for her, a welcome home, or even perhaps an answer to her letter, but she found nothing to acknowledge her existence. There were no flowers, she noted, wishing she had brought the pink roses from the hotel. Well, that at least could be remedied. She changed into comfortable clothes and went out into the bright October afternoon with Fonzi, walked down Charles Street to the florist on the corner and chose twelve enormous African daisies in every shade of deep rose, orange, yellow, and red, then added in a few sprays of eucalyptus. In her mood of expectation and dread, they gave a note of triumph, a kind of homage even to Ned—yes, homage, she thought, rather surprised at the word she had conjured up. She was terribly anxious now to see him, to run a finger along his stern mouth, to tell him that after all she was still very much in love. For her something had been solved, at least temporarily, by saying what she felt in the letter. Having said it, it was no longer a poison, the anger inside her. She could lay it all aside.
And in this mood she read the mail, finding in it two letters from Pittsburgh, one from the woman who had sent the flowers. “You are quite marvelous,” it said, “I wonder whether you know how transcendant you are, how your singing does more than fill our ears with beauty, but lifts us up beyond petty cares into what life is really all about.”
Anna set it down on the table beside her and leaned back in her chair. When people said things like that they never seemed quite believable. Could it be true, she wondered? And if so why was it that in her life itself she could never achieve this, never transcend? Never be as Ned’s wife what she had been for him when he did not know her?
The other was a short note in purple ink from Sophie, “I wanted to say goodbye, but was afraid to wake you. I took an early plane to the coast. What fun we had! You are quite adorable, etc. Love, Sophie.” The “etc.” was so characteristic it made Anna smile. Yes, she thought, we did have fun, glorious fun.
“Life is good, Fonzi. Come and let me scratch your tummy,” and she lifted Fonzi up for a little nuzzle. It seemed an eternity until five-thirty when she could expect Ned to come home.
At half past five she was dressed in a gray dress that she had worn only once before on an occasion she remembered as happy. Anna was superstitious enough to accord dresses a genius of their own, so much so that she had sometimes laid aside forever a dress associated with pain or disaster, and she realized “disaster” was often caused by anger, an inappropriate outburst on a social occasion. Am I really an impossible human being, she asked herself, standing in front of the long mirror in the bedroom? What she saw with her eyes was a poised, handsome woman who could not help but draw attention, who had an air about her which was almost beauty, but not quite. Not quite because it was less stylized than true beauty, too mobile, she thought, smiling at herself. What her eyes saw made her smile, what her mind said to her was not flattering.
There you are, her mind said, with everything in your favor, including a real gift as a performer, and then you wreck it all, like a bad spoiled child.
No, Anna protested, spirit or whatever it was, against reason, not a bad child. A child who can’t keep anything back, for whom life is so close to the surface that there is no defense, no armor, a child so hungry for love and praise that a cold word can throw her off balance.
At that moment, she heard Ned’s key in the lock and ran to the door.
“Darling!” she cried out, “At last you’re here!”
“More or less here,” Ned said after kissing her on the cheek and moving past her to hang up his overcoat and to greet Fonzi who was barking in great excitement. In that second of his turning away, Anna’s state of mind changed. What had made her imagine that Ned would take her in his arms? That he would show some joy?
“Well,” he said, “I’ve a table at the club for seven.” He looked at his watch. “There’s time for a drink before I change. Scotch all right?”
“Of course.” No champagne for her this time, she noted.
“Your mother said the concert went well. I was glad to hear that,” Ned said from the kitchen, so Anna could not see his face. He brought in the drinks, set hers down by the sofa, taking his over to his chair where he could put his feet up. “And what did you do with your day alone in Pittsburgh?”
“I went to the museum and saw a lovely show of Impressionists from private collections—what a treat! There was one of those Monet haystacks in evening light … and an exquisite Vuillard I wanted to steal for you.” The hungry-for-love-and-praise child told the bad, spoiled child to keep it cool. If he was not going to give, neither would she, Anna decided, as he had
not reacted to her offering, her reference to the game they had played long ago. “And what have you been doing with yourself?”
“Working hard. Things are awfully uneasy these days in the financial world. The market is nervous … and so am I, I suppose. The banks are in an awful squeeze and will be, I expect until the interest rates go down.”
Anna sat very still, sipped her drink, and waited.
“Oh, I played a fast game of court tennis with Johnny and he won. I walked Fonzi, of course. He wanted to attack a Great Dane!” Hearing his name, Fonzi, who was lying at Ned’s feet, looked up and gave a short bark. “Yes, you did, Fonzi.” Ned was smiling now, but not at her, Anna knew. And with every minute, the gulf between them was widening.
“Oh, Nancy came backstage.”
“Nancy who?”
“Nancy Furman … we were at Juilliard together. She had quite a fine soprano voice, but she gave it all up when she married, and now has four children.”
“And no regrets?”
“Maybe some regrets—I guess she sort of envied me. But one can’t have everything.”
“And you didn’t envy her, of course.” Ned was looking across at her for the first time, but the look was faintly hostile.
Anna reacted, she couldn’t help it. “A lot of women have four children or six or eight children, you know. But very few indeed have a voice like mine. Oh, Ned,” she said, taking her drink over to the windows and looking out over the lights of the Common, “I wish you could have heard the duet with Sophie, it was so beautiful, such a release, somehow transcendant.”
“And the reviews?”
“Good.”
“You’ve come home on the crest of the wave, I see.”
“Anna Lindstrom is on the crest of the wave … in Pittsburgh I planned out the whole Dallas concert. I’m going to sing the Kindertoten Lieder.” Anna was suddenly afraid Ned would needle her about that, singing the death of children she did not want to have, so she went on quickly, “Anna Fraser wonders if you got her letter.” There, it was out!
“Yes, I did,” Ned got up. “I guess I’d better have a shower. Have a look at Chancellor and tell me what is happening when I come back.”
Alone with the tv on, Anna burst into tears. Fonzi came trotting over, his tail wagging, eager to lick them. “Yes, Fonzi, darling, do lick my tears.” And, well licked, Anna managed to stop crying. She knew it would only irritate Ned if he came back to find her, dissolved. “I despise your tears,” he had said, this husband, this mortal enemy. And now she despised them herself. They were the other side of rage, as irrational as rage. And in the hour since Ned’s arrival, rage was eating into her again like a poison she could not handle.
On the screen a short section about havens for abused wives was going on. Under the Reagan cuts these havens, which only recently had been a concern of government, were in danger of closing. Anna’s attention was riveted on this problem when Ned came back, looking elegant in a dark blue suit, cool, contained, and, she had to admit, extremely distinguished.
“Is this very distinguished man really taking me to dinner?”
“Yes, this poor worm is really taking the diva to dinner!”
“Oh, Ned,” Anna stood up, laughing. It was so easy to forget the bitterness if he gave even a little. “Come on, let’s go then.”
“You be a good dog, Fonzi, and we’ll have a walk when we get back.” Fonzi went to his bed and curled up.
And Ned and Anna walked down to the Somerset Club, arm in arm.
When they had settled at their usual table in a corner and had ordered, Ned looked up and asked “What was all that about shelters for battered women on the news?”
“It looks as though the cuts would mean some of them at least would have to close.”
“A bad business, I’m afraid.”
“Just when a start had been made, it seems too cruel, cruel and stupid, to cut off help …” Here Anna felt safe with Ned. About such matters he was generous, and occasionally put her to shame by his awareness and her own ignorance. He was on so many charitable committees. “Ned, do you think the private sector can take over all that the government is cutting out? What does it really mean? Will those women again have nowhere to take refuge? I mean, how can we go back on so many promises?”
“You’ve asked a lot of questions and I’m afraid I don’t have any answers. Can the private sector fill the gap? I guess I must be asked that question a dozen times a day. You can have no idea what the demands are right now. My secretary spends about half her time trying to reassure scared people, people who are involved in valuable work and scared to death that they won’t be able to carry on. The foundations are in all this up to their ears.”
“I read somewhere that Reagan gives one percent of his income to charity … one percent, Ned!”
At this Ned smiled, “It’s a free country, Anna, after all.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“It is his business, not ours. Our business, as I see it, is to manage to give here and there a great deal more than we have done—but then how does one choose?”
They had this evening found a subject they could talk about and plunged into it with zest because it was, or seemed, safe.
“You’re so generous, it makes me feel ashamed.”
“Nonsense, there is a fairly wide margin. It’s not really generous to give what you have. Generosity, as I see it, is giving what you don’t have.”
“It sounds simple, but it isn’t. But I guess it is something ingrained in the ethos here, isn’t it?”
“The old Puritan ethic of self-mortification, you mean?”
“In your world, the people we know in this room, for example, institutional giving is as taken for granted as brushing one’s teeth is my guess … and not just for tax purposes either. Hospitals, symphony orchestras, colleges and universities—oh Ned, does anything really important ever pay its way?”
“I never thought about it.”
“The arts appear always to be the orphan children of a civilization. It doesn’t seem right somehow. The enormous power money has to support or not to support.… It’s a little scary.”
“You bet it is!”
“Someday will you tell me what things we—I mean you and I—are supporting? I really don’t know.” It was true. One thing Ned and she had never approached as a mutual problem or responsibility was money. From the beginning it had not been discussed between them. Ned paid the bills and had never questioned any of them. Anna paid for her clothes and whatever she wanted for herself out of what she earned. And she gave what she could to help people and causes that she felt to be her own concerns, a home for retired singers for one.
“I’ll give you a list,” Ned said, “if you will first tell me what you want for dessert. Strawberry mousse, for instance?”
Anna was smiling.
“What’s amusing?”
“That we have fought about everything except money. I bet there are very few marriages where money has not been a thorn in the side. My father, for instance, never gave mother enough for the housekeeping expenses—that is what finally drove her into selling antiques.”
“Money and sex were the two taboo subjects in that generation, I suppose. My mother, on the other hand, had the fortune, so she never suffered in that way.”
“Was it a happy marriage, Ned?”
“God knows. The legend is that it was. How can I possibly know? I suspect that my father felt somewhat smothered, but that is only a guess.”
“If sex and money were the taboos in that generation, what are the taboos in ours?” Anna was feeling happy and exhilarated. Maybe after all her letter was having an effect, for Ned seemed at ease with himself that evening.
“In ours?” he frowned. “Privacy. Holding anything back. It’s the age of turning oneself inside out or be damned.”
“Oh?” Anna raised an eyebrow. For there had been something fierce in the way he said it, and she changed the subject. Should they accept an invitation to
dine out that weekend? It would mean staying in town.
“Let’s go down to the country,” Ned answered. “Fonzi deserves a little outing for a change.”
“And so do we!”
But when they got home, while Ned was taking Fonzi for his evening walk and Anna got undressed with a Haydn concerto on the player, she knew that the dinner conversation had been a reprieve. Sooner or later they would have to talk about themselves.
When Ned came back, she was undressed and pulled him down to sit on the bed and kissed him on the mouth. “I do love you,” she said.
“Even in the dark?” He was looking down, and he had not kissed her when she kissed him.
“Don’t.” Anna sat up.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t shut me out.”
“I’m not shutting you out. I just asked a civil question.”
“You’ve read my letter. I am not going to repeat what I said.”
“I’d better sleep on the sofa,” Ned got up, but she caught his hand and pulled him back.
“We have to talk, Ned.”
“I don’t have anything to say.” He would not look at her and Anna sat up, not angry but as cold as ice.
“Very well then, sleep on the sofa. This seems to be the beginning of the end.”
Ned grabbed his pillow and pulled it out from under Anna’s head quite roughly. But then, as though something held back, held down for years exploded in his head, and with a strange exhilarating fury, he turned back at the door. “I’m sick to death of the scenes and the needling. Your letter was an attack below the belt,” and as Anna laughed at the unconscious accuracy of this, “What’s funny about that? When I had read it I tore it up. I felt castrated if you must know. All those nights when you pretended to be in ecstasy came back, all those lies …”
“They weren’t lies!”
“You act all the time. How am I ever to know when you are honest?”
“Ned!” Anna was not angry. She was too astonished, observing with a curious satisfaction that Ned was too angry to control himself.
