Last Resort

by Alison Lurie

  What Jenny had feared as she followed the corridor was not the distressing sight of her husband in a hospital bed, but an interrogation. Why hadn’t she been there when he was taken ill? Why had she got home so late?

  By the time she reached Wilkie’s room Jenny was breathing hard and trembling slightly. She looked at the hospital-green metal door and imagined her husband behind it, sitting stiffly up in bed as he always did when not sleeping, fixing her with a scowl as if she were a bad specimen. Jenny had never seen Wilkie direct that look at her—but she had seen it directed at others. In her mind she heard the words that would come out of his mouth if he knew what she’d been doing when she should have been with him: how she had broken down and sobbed in Lee’s arms, accusing him of adultery and revealing things that should always remain private between a married couple. If he knew about that, Jenny thought as she stood in the wide corridor, which smelled strongly of disinfectant, Wilkie would use words like “disloyal” and “hysterical.” “I am disappointed in you,” he would say, as he used to say sometimes to the children.

  She pushed open the heavy door. There was a hospital bed in the bare room, and someone lying in it with the sheet pulled up over his face, as if he had died. Her heart gave a great lurch. Then she realized that the person in the bed was breathing, with a kind of half-snore that she recognized.

  “Hello?” she uttered.

  The figure in the bed turned over heavily, pulled the sheet down, and became a heavy elderly man with strong features, thinning hair, and a sour expression. He looked at her without apparent enthusiasm, blinking, not speaking.

  “How are you?” she squeaked.

  “Jenny,” the man said in a slurred version of Wilkie’s voice. His tone was neutral, as if identifying some object of no particular interest or attraction.

  “I brought the things you wanted,” she said.

  Wilkie did not speak.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t home when you got sick,” she babbled on. “Lee was late getting back from the funeral, and then I had to drive to Searstown, to the supermarket—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Wilkie interrupted. “It wasn’t anything. I never was seriously ill, I only thought—”

  “I know, Barbie Mumpson told me, you thought you were having a heart attack. That must have been awful.” Moved by duty and habit and good manners, Jenny approached the bed, leaned down, and with closed lips brushed the dry, puffy cheek of the man who lay there: an irritable, cold-hearted man who deceived his wife with silly young women.

  “Yeah—No. I actually thought—” Wilkie swallowed. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m all right, just kind of knocked out by all those drugs they gave me.” He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Did you bring the books I asked for?”

  “Yes, they’re right here, on the table.”

  “You’re a good woman.”

  This was a statement Jenny had often heard from Wilkie before, though not for many months. Once she had acknowledged it with a glad private smile, and sometimes with the matching phrase: “And you’re a good man.” But now this phrase would be a lie. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked instead.

  “No thanks. That idiot doctor insists I have to spend the night. So he can charge our insurance for another day, I assume. Can you come tomorrow morning at nine and pick me up?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Right. You go on home now, get some rest. I might as well try to sleep some more. Have to take every chance you get in a hospital—wake you up every couple hours to take your temperature or some other damned nonsense.”

  “I’ll come back this evening, after supper.”

  “Don’t bother.” Wilkie gave his wife a weary, neutral look, then turned onto his other side, away from her.

  If she were really a good woman, Jenny would have done what Wilkie told her and gone home. Instead, she’d driven straight to Artemis Lodge.

  Lee had welcomed her, listened to her, comforted her; she had opened a bottle of Italian chianti, made fettuccine with tomato pesto and roasted peppers, followed by key lime sherbet.

  Jenny’s guilt was wholly irrational, Lee had declared when her friend paused for breath. It wasn’t her fault that Barbie Mumpson had been there and she hadn’t. After all, hadn’t she said that Wilkie had continually told her to get out of the house and meet people? Evidently he hadn’t wanted her around.

  Yes; it felt like that, Jenny said miserably.

  And while she was out of the house, presumably, Lee went on, Wilkie Walker must have been sleeping with Barbie Mumpson. He didn’t care who knew it, either, or he wouldn’t have kissed her right out on the street where anyone, including Jenny, could see. Wilkie was the one who should feel guilty, Lee said. And it could be that he was already being punished, too. His attack, gallstone or heart or whatever it was, might have been the result of what was sometimes called “overexertion” with Barbie; you often read of such things in the newspapers.

  As Lee spoke, angry, hopeless tears rose behind Jenny’s eyes, and overflowed into her bowl of lime sherbet. Lee rose and came round the table: she held her, kissed her gently, and stroked her hair. It was hard, she said. She knew that. But it was best to face these things. Jenny had to accept that her marriage was probably over.

  “But that’s—” Jenny sobbed. “But I tried so hard. I did everything I should, for so many years.”

  “Of course you did,” Lee agreed. “It’s not your fault, not in any way. Here, have some more wine.”

  “But I’ve always done everything for him. Not just keeping house, but typing and researching his books, and writing parts of them, and the articles, and the lectures—I mean, that’s my job,” Jenny continued between bursts of sobbing. “If I’m not working with Wilkie, what am I supposed to do? I won’t know what to do. I won’t even know who I am.”

  “Sure you will,” Lee told her, stroking her back and shoulders as she began crying again. “It just takes time. It’s hard to break these old habit patterns, these old guilt patterns, after so many years.”

  In the end, Jenny hadn’t gone home till nearly midnight, and then only because she was afraid that Wilkie or a doctor or a nurse might call. When she proposed leaving after supper, Lee had pointed out, quite correctly, that she was in no shape to drive. Then, somehow, she had ended up, exhausted and blurred with wine and tears, in Lee’s bedroom.

  Wilkie had probably not slept much last night either, Jenny thought now, coming to the lumpy end of a row of knitting and starting back. But while he was lying uncomfortably awake on a hard hospital bed, his sleep broken by noises and interruptions, she had been on another wider and softer bed, under an orange Indian spread patterned with huge pink and red flowers, fading in and out of tears and sleep, letting Lee hold her and stroke her and kiss her.

  It had felt familiar and comfortable, but strange too, because the things Lee began to do after a while were things Wilkie had never done—or if they were the same, Lee did them so much slower and softer that Jenny, when she wasn’t drifted away into unconsciousness, felt as if she were dreaming.

  But she wasn’t always dreaming, Jenny thought. Sometimes, now and then, she had been aware of everything: the way the wind pushed the leaves against the screen outside Lee’s window, pressing them together, and the colored-glass chimes on the porch glittering and tinkling in the porch light. The softness of Lee’s sun-browned skin, and her dark, springy hair thick on the sheets, like raveled raw silk—She had wanted everything that happened, because Lee was so kind, because Lee loved her, and she loved Lee. And because Wilkie had turned into a person she wasn’t sure she even liked, who didn’t like her.

  It was true what Lee had said: she had to get used to the idea that her marriage was over, and that probably, as soon as he was well again, Wilkie would tell her so. She had to get used to the idea that he loved Barbie Mumpson, absurd as that seemed, because how could anyone love someone as silly as that?

  But those things weren’t logica
l; Lee had said that last night. “After all,” she had said, “when you look at it rationally, it’s improbable that any two people in the world should care so much for each other. Only sometimes it happens.”

  “But isn’t it sometimes, I don’t know, sort of ridiculous?” Jenny had asked. “I mean, take us. Two middle-aged women.”

  “Love is sort of ridiculous, sure,” Lee said, “but also it’s not ridiculous. The way I see it, anyone has the right to be in love. It’s just a dumb convention that they have to be the same age and race and religion and class, and they can’t be the same sex. You’re just goddamn lucky if you love anyone and they love you back.”

  Jenny turned her knitting again and saw that the last dozen rows were distorted and uneven, as if she had been alternately pulling the yarn too tight and letting it fall slack. Now the sweater looked the way she felt, full of lumps and no use to anybody.

  “Jenny!” a voice called from above.

  “Coming!” She dropped her work to the tile floor and began to climb the stairs.

  Wilkie did not smile as she came in. He lay there with a pale, inward expression, under a painting of a sunset with pink flamingoes flying across it. “Did you get the Times?” he asked.

  “Yes, here it is.”

  “You might read some of it to me. Just run through the headlines, I’ll tell you what I want to hear.”

  “All right,” Jenny said. It wasn’t a new request—Wilkie had made it sometimes in the past when his eyes were tired—but not for many months. “DEMOCRATS TEST STRENGTH,” she read in a flat voice. “U.S.-CANADA RIFTS GROW OVER TRADE. NEW PLAN FOR AILING BANKS. DOLPHIN COURTSHIP.”

  “Yes, read that one.”

  “‘As much as puppies or pandas or even children, dolphins are universally beloved,’” Jenny read. “‘They seem to cavort and frolic at the least provocation.’” It’s like when the children were small and he was working so hard on Whispers in the Dark, she thought, up all night so many nights watching the creatures that never come out till the sun goes down, straining his eyes through special binoculars. At dawn he’d come home and I’d have his breakfast ready, oatmeal with cream and brown sugar, or bacon and scrambled eggs, and after he’d told me how the night had gone I’d read to him from the Times. We were happy then.

  “‘... Their mouths are fixed in what looks like a state of perpetual merriment,’” she continued in a monotone, not trying to take in any meaning, but noticing that Wilkie too was smiling very slightly. We’re doing the same things, she thought, but we’re not the same. It’s over between us: all that has to happen is for you to say so. From now on Barbie Mumpson will read the Times to you.

  Wilkie’s eyes were half-shut. “‘Their behavior and enormous brains suggest an intelligence approaching that of humans—’” Jenny continued, lowering her voice to a hum. “‘—or even, some might argue, surpassing it.’”

  “The usual guff,” Wilkie muttered. “Thanks, that’s enough. Think I’ll try to sleep a bit more now.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. Oh, I forgot to tell you. Gerry Grass stopped by a while ago.”

  “Mrh,” Wilkie said, without interest.

  “He asked me to say he was very sorry you’d been sick, and hoped you’d be better soon,” Jenny said, reporting Gerry’s words but not his gestures or the subtext of his message.

  Gerry had held her hand in both his large warm hands, stared into her eyes with his large warm eyes, and assured her that if she needed him for anything at all, he was right there. Even in her preoccupied condition, it had been clear to Jenny that he was repeating his offer. Well, she had thought dimly and rather dismally, maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do with my life next.

  The trouble was, she liked Gerry Grass, but she couldn’t love him. For one thing, she couldn’t believe he was a good poet. Jenny had often been moved by poetry: Wordsworth and Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, especially. “The soul selects her own society ... She had begun quoting those lines to Lee yesterday, and Lee had joined in, so that they finished the poem in a soft, close chorus. Gerry’s poems didn’t rhyme or scan, and the collection of essays whose proofs she had been reading for him was even worse, being wholly concerned with himself and his impressions and opinions of other poets. It wasn’t the sort of book that would ever make a real difference in the world.

  What Lee did, though, had made a difference and would continue to make a difference. She listened for hours to women who stayed in the guest house, like the therapist she had been, but she didn’t charge them anything. And quite often, when someone was in trouble or couldn’t pay, she let them stay there for almost nothing or even absolutely free.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked Wilkie, lowering her voice in case he was already asleep.

  “No thanks. Wait—There is one thing. You can keep that silly girl out of here.”

  “Girl?”

  “You know. My new fan. She called my room twice this morning, before you got to the hospital.”

  Jenny sat silent, her mouth half-open.

  “You know who I mean. Came to the hospital with me. Wants to save manatees.”

  “Barbie? You don’t want to see Barbie?”

  “No. Certainly not now.”

  “I thought you—” Jenny heard her own voice, a kind of hysterical gulp, and swallowed the rest of the sentence.

  “What?” her husband murmured drowsily.

  “I thought you liked her.”

  “Well, I suppose I’m grateful to her. Ought to be anyhow. But she exhausts me. Bores me too. I can’t be bothered with fans now.”

  Jenny swallowed again. Liar, liar, she thought. “Barbie’s not just a fan,” she said, her voice shaking. “I know all about it. I saw you kissing her on Sunday.”

  “What?” Wilkie repeated, but this time the word was a firecracker.

  “I saw you. Right out in front of this house. On Valentine’s Day.” Jenny laid out the facts in a tone that wavered but made each word an accusation: of adultery; of cold-blooded hypocrisy; of blatant public exposure.

  “Nothing of the sort,” her husband said, raising himself on one elbow, frowning heavily.

  “I saw you, from the living room window.”

  “That’s ridiculous, I never—Wait a second.” Wilkie pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Was this the day that poor fellow in the wheelchair drowned at the beach?”

  “I guess so. Yes.”

  “I remember.” He stared past Jenny, the frown between his bushy piebald eyebrows deepening. “Yeah. She stopped me at the gate, tried to give me some pamphlets. I was exhausted after all the fuss over the accident. Shaking with cold. All I wanted was to get inside, have a hot shower. So I took her handouts, I figured that was fastest, and she jumped on me and gave me a big sloppy kiss.”

  “I-uh,” Jenny stuttered. Maybe he’s not lying, she thought. Or else he’s lying awfully well.

  “You didn’t think, darling—You couldn’t—”

  “Yes, I did,” Jenny said. “Anyhow I wondered—I mean, you’ve been so strange, you’ve hardly spoken to me for months. I thought you were angry with me about something. But then after Sunday I assumed you were probably involved with Barbie Mumpson.”

  “That is totally insane,” Wilkie said with force. “I had no idea—You must know, Jenny, I could never seriously care for any other woman. You should have realized that. After all these years—And a goop like, what’s her name, Bobbie. How could you possibly believe that?”

  “Barbie,” Jenny corrected. Suppose he’s telling the truth, she thought. Suppose he does still care for me, in some sort of way. But if that’s so he’s not guilty of adultery. He’s not guilty of anything except being unpleasant for months. I’m the one who’s guilty.

  “Whatever. I’m very sorry you got that impression. I admit I’ve probably seemed preoccupied. I’ve seemed—I’ve been—” He frowned and looked away, out of the window, as if the words he was searching for might fly past like bir
ds; then he looked back.

  “Strange,” Jenny supplied, when he did not continue. “Very strange and cold and unfriendly.”

  “I’m sorry,” Wilkie said for the second time, rather haltingly; it was not his usual habit to apologize. “It’s true, Jenny, I’ve had things on my mind. I didn’t want to burden you with them.”

  “What things?” she demanded.

  “Different things. How to finish the book, and I thought—” Wilkie paused for almost a minute. Jenny, waiting, did not speak. “I thought I was sick,” he said finally.

  “You were sick, yesterday,” Jenny said, worried now. Was her husband losing touch with reality? Had he had a stroke, a memory loss?

  “Not that,” Wilkie said slowly and gratingly, as if he were drawing the words up from an old well, with long pauses between the sentences while the bucket went down again. “I mean before yesterday. I thought I was seriously ill. For quite a while. Since last fall. I thought I had—” he paused again, swallowed “—cancer, actually.”

  “Oh, that’s awful—You really thought—But Dr. Felch said—”

  “Yeah, I know. It was a mistake.” He gave a weak half-smile. “At least I hope so. The head doctor at the hospital who came in this morning says the same as Felch. Says I’m in good shape.”

  “But all this time, since last fall, you thought—”

  “Well. Yeah. That’s probably why I’ve seemed—What was it you said? Strange. Unfriendly.” Wilkie’s eyes began to close, then opened again. “I suppose that’s why you had those absurd ideas about that girl,” he said. He gave a thin, wheezing sigh, and shut his eyes.

  Still holding the Times, Jenny stared at her husband. It wasn’t like him to say what he’d just said, to apologize, to worry about his health. It was like another person, a wholly different sort of person. And as she thought this, Wilkie began to change while she watched, from a strong, handsome, healthy, but cold and unfaithful husband into a heavy, slack, elderly person with gray chenille hair and irrational fears.