Another Marvelous Thing

by Laurie Colwin

  Francis regarded the saltine half. It looked wet and it was not, in fact, half. It was more a scant third.

  “There’s some wheat germ,” said Billie. “On second thought, there’s not. Gee, I’m not good for much, am I?”

  “Not for food,” said Francis. “But you have compensating charms.”

  “Hey,” said Billy. “I know what. You stay here.”

  She went into the kitchen and returned carrying a pottery terrine in the shape of a goose. Francis knew at once that it was full of pâté de foie gras.

  “I forgot about this,” Billy said. “Grey’s uncle sent it to us ages ago. And look! Water biscuits.”

  Francis adored foie gras. He thought, longingly, of brown bread with Normandy butter, endive salad, chilled white wine, and spicy little cornichons to go with it, but here at Billy’s table, they ate their slices on stale water biscuits. He thought of other meals he would like to have with it: double consommé with tiny meat dumplings, Bibb lettuce with mustard dressing, toast points. On white plates with big linen napkins. This was his way of making mental reference to Vera, who knew how to serve foie gras, without thinking about her.

  Francis considered himself an excellent husband. He fetched his wife’s luggage, picked her up from the airport and carried her thence, drew her bath when she was tired, weather-stripped the bedroom windows, saw to her investments, gave financial advice to members of her family, was moderate in his habits and, in general, was a cheering sort of companion. His many years with Vera were rich in history.

  And yet, he thought, as he gazed at the top of Billy’s head, at his age a man required a little light and dark—a little something that made the images of life as clear and startling as those on a photographic plate.

  Francis often thought of this love affair in architectural terms—as a folly or gazebo or some small chapel done in California Spanish Gothic. Whatever it was, it was an eccentric structure full of twists, turns, gargoyles, and mazes—a kind of created wilderness, like the gardens of Capability Brown.

  He smiled across the table. A smile stole—the only way it ever got there—across Billy’s features. It quite lit up her face and reminded Francis how much he loved her.

  “It’s so rare to see you smile,” he said with a catch in his voice. “Each time I see it, I always think I ought to have a picture of it.”

  “Smart idea,” said Billy. “You could make it into postcards and send it to your friends at Christmas.”

  Late at night Francis went out into the cold and drove to his own abode to sleep alone. He and Billy did not have what Billy referred to as “sleep-over dates.” The ostensible reason for the shunning of sleep-over dates was the late-night telephone call from a traveling spouse, but the truth, although Francis was not sure quite what the truth was, was probably more complicated. For instance, Billy hated his house and usually refused to set a foot within it. Therefore their dealings took place at Billy’s. Furthermore, she became extremely uneasy whenever Francis followed her into her bedroom. Francis, of course, followed her any chance he got—when she went to change her clothes, for example. He had noticed with an unpleasant jolt that the bed his mistress shared with her husband was rather small, whereas the bed he shared with his wife was rather large.

  Late at night it was not unusual for Francis to find himself wide awake, exhausted, and unable to sleep. The theme of this insomnia was Grey Delielle. Often he simply held an image of Grey in his mind—Grey with his elbows on Francis’s dinner table talking in his soft, intelligent voice, an image from the one dinner party Billy and Grey had been to, although they had been invited several times.

  What did he know about Grey? That he had done graduate work at the London School of Economics and had worked on Wall Street for a year before he quit in a combination of boredom and despondency. He had been snapped up to be economic adviser and troubleshooter at the Valeur Foundation, where he wrote white papers on economic trends and represented the foundation at various seminars and policy meetings here and abroad. He had invented the Delielle curve, which predicted the fluctuation of interest rates. He had two sisters, Helena and Alice. Helena, Francis seemed to remember, lived with her husband and children in Scotland. He could not remember what Alice did. Perhaps Billy had never said. Grey had studied Russian and as an undergraduate had had a fellowship for a year at the University of Leningrad. He was a minor expert on iron curtain country economies.

  He was five feet eleven and a half, had wavy brown hair, and wore the kind of glasses the National Health gives out—plain, round, with a wire rim. He liked racket sports—had Francis once entertained the notion of playing squash with him?—and also loved soccer.

  The only subject on which Billy was forthcoming about Grey was his relationship to the natural world: he was a trout fisherman, a tier of flies, a finder and cataloger of bird’s nests, fossils, animal bones. He was interested in flora and fauna of all kinds, in contrast to Francis, who liked cut flowers and domestic animals such as Irish terriers and beef cows.

  And what did this amount to? Billy’s real life was Grey. They almost looked alike: well made, dark-haired, solid.

  These reflections made his heart pound.

  Every once in a while he would try to snag another crumb of information from his beloved.

  “About you and Grey,” he would begin. A perfectly blank look would cover Billy’s features. She did not approve of this sort of conversation. Francis had to admit that she had never solicited anything about Vera: he had always told her more than she ever wanted to know.

  “Why not discuss it?” Francis said.

  Billy gave him a long look and said it was a moral issue.

  “I don’t see this as a moral issue,” Francis said.

  “How fascinating,” said Billy. “You don’t see adultery as a moral issue.”

  “No, I don’t,” Francis said defensively. “This is the twentieth century. We are two grown people who are hurting no one at all. We are sincerely fond of one another. I think what we are doing is entirely on the up-and-up. And besides, if it is immoral, you don’t have much right getting sticky on smaller points like not talking about your husband.”

  When Francis looked at Billy he saw an expression on her face he had never seen before, of awful sadness and tension. It made him realize that she did see this as a moral issue. How far apart they were!

  “Do you feel you’re doing something wrong?” said Francis in the fatherly tone he could not prevent and which she hated.

  “Obviously.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  “Obviously I can’t triumph over my immoral side,” said Billy, and that was the end of that conversation.

  Francis had actually been shocked. How hopeless it seemed ever to know another person!

  Often he asked Billy if he might stay over and sleep with her in her bed just to see what she would say. He felt he was entitled to this barometer of her feeling.

  He asked as he was putting on his coat.

  “Why don’t we go over to your house and sleep in your bed?” she said, as she often did.

  Francis, of course, did not answer because he did not ever want Billy to know what great appeal this idea had for him. As he drove home slowly in the snow he wondered how he was going to account for his time when Vera called, if, in fact, she had called during the day. He made up a double feature of outer-space horror movies—Avengers from Planet X and Shards of Death. Francis often went to what Vera thought were idiotic films, but he considered them material and often used them in his columns.

  But Vera had not called all day, and when she did call, she was tired and Francis was tired and therefore he did not get to use his invented movies. This depressed him. Even more depressing was the icy coldness of the sheets as he slipped into bed. He lay half frozen and then, in a fit of longing, he dialed Billy’s number. Her line was busy.

  In his tired, cold state, sleep eluded him. Instead of sinking back into gentle slumber, he found himself as usual p
ossessed of a fixed idea: Grey Delielle and how little he knew about him. He had snooped in Grey’s closet—a row of charcoal and blue business suits, a pair of binoculars on a hook, a chart of the heavens tacked to the door, a pair of hiking boots. Next to his bed was a pile of mysteries and two astronomy books. He wore a flannel robe. His handwriting was minuscule and looked, from a little distance, like tiny insect droppings. Francis knew this because he had tried to read various notes of Grey’s on Billy’s desk. That tiny script disturbed Francis. What sort of person was it who made his handwriting so purposefully minimal and yet expected to be read? Was it a form of arrogance? Was this person capable of writing a love letter? Did whatever lay behind this insectlike handwriting have anything to contribute to whatever reasons Billy had for conducting a secret love affair? Billy and Grey were as mysterious as creatures from Planet X. He knew that Billy and Grey had both grown up in London and known each other in childhood. Did this mean they were bored with each other, or incredibly close? With these unpleasant and unanswerable questions flopping around in his head like a bat that had mistakenly flown in through the living room window, Francis fell asleep.

  The next morning he jumped into his clothes, called Billy and woke her up, and dashed into the kitchen for a quick cup of tea. His eye fell on the Clemenses’ old picnic basket, which was kept on top of the sideboard. He got it down and filled it with a box of good tea, a tin of kippers, a half-dozen eggs, a package of oatcakes, a loaf of homemade whole wheat bread, which had been kept in the freezer, and a stick of butter. With this load he trudged into the blowing snow, well aware of what a picture he made. Only a man very far gone in some way would make such a preposterous gesture.

  On the stairs of her house he saw that the Sunday paper had been delivered. As he scooped it up in his arms he realized how other the life of the other is. He had no idea that the Delielles got their Sunday paper delivered. He looked around him. There was not a soul on the street. He stood at Billy’s door with his picnic basket in his hand.

  “Well, well. Father Christmas,” said Billy when she opened the door.

  Francis shook himself, took off his boots, and hung his coat and hat on the Delielles’ hat rack. Billy was wearing exactly what she had been wearing yesterday and would wear tomorrow. She had not yet brushed her hair, which was mussed on one side and flat on the other, and there was a fleck of toothpaste on her upper lip. His heart expanded like a bellows, and he took her into his arms.

  “No hanky-panky before breakfast,” said Billy. “I hope there’s something to eat in there.”

  This hurt Francis’s feelings. If she could not put on something less hideous to greet him in, at least she might spare him a crumb, but when he entered the kitchen, he saw she had not been idle. She too had been out and had provisioned eggs, English muffins, strawberry jam, and five cans of split pea soup.

  They watched the snow fall as they had their breakfast, and then they went upstairs to Billy’s study and bedded down on her awful couch, giving Francis a chance to reflect, as he had reflected many times before, what a bare and ugly setting this was for love.

  Then it was time for lunch. By this time the snow had stopped and Francis suggested a walk.

  “Too cold,” Billy said.

  “I’m restless,” Francis said. “Come home with me and we’ll hang around my house for a change.”

  “Never,” said Billy.

  “It isn’t fair,” Francis said. Billy looked at him.

  “I don’t have to be fair,” she said. “Besides, the little buggers are always dropping by.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t refer to my sons as the little buggers,” Francis said.

  “You’re absolutely right,” said Billy. “They’re grown-up buggers now.”

  “They won’t drop in,” Francis said. “They’re off skiing with their sweethearts.”

  “What about Miss Thompson?” said Billy, referring to Francis’s upstairs tenant.

  “In England.”

  “And the little Sutcliffes?”

  “The little Sutcliffes never leave their snug little bunk except to go to work. They’re probably all curled up under a fuzzy blanket with their Angora cat.”

  “I still don’t want to go.”

  “Nonsense, girl. Into your snowsuit.”

  Francis’s hallway was papered in dark green, with a design of red and yellow medallions. The floor was polished wood and had an old Persian runner on it. The hall table had been sent back from France and held a large faïence bowl—also brought back from France—in which keys and change and ticket stubs and mail were kept. The hall chair—an English chair carved from a single log—had been a present from Francis to Vera. Billy sat in it, taking off her boots.

  Francis asked her to hurry—she had been taking off her boots for several hours, he felt. She looked up at him. Her hair fell into her eyes. “I hate it here,” she said.

  It made Francis glow that she hated his dwelling. No one but a person in love with him could have hated it.

  He led her into the kitchen, a room Francis particularly loved. It had the original beams, a fireplace, a well-stocked pantry, and a large, old Welsh cupboard on whose shelves were stacked Vera’s collection of yellow crockery. The kitchen table had been made by Swedish peasants. Billy sat down at the table. Francis made her a cup of tea.

  “Don’t you feel awfully exposed with all this stuff around?” she said.

  “Do you mean afraid of being burgled?”

  “I mean, out in the open,” Billy said. “All your taste is on display. People assume what you’re like before they hardly get into the living room.”

  No one in the world, Francis thought, could ever have told much about Billy by looking at her. She had little to display. The vital things about her were willfully hidden. He watched her drink her cup of tea out of one of the yellow cups. He wished he could freeze the moment and have her forever sitting at the kitchen table with the light casting a sheen on her lank hair, with her sleeves rolled up to reveal her flat forearms.

  “What would Grey say if he found out about us?” Francis suddenly said.

  “He would be very disappointed,” Billy said. “He thinks I’m honorable.”

  “And seeing me means you aren’t?”

  “Grey’s a very serious person,” Billy said.

  The implication that Francis was not a very serious person hung in the air, and Billy did nothing to dispel it.

  “Vera’s pretty sophisticated,” said Francis. “She’d be mad, but I don’t think she’d disapprove.”

  “In that case,” said Billy, “I’ll just leave her a little note.”

  When Francis finished his tea he realized how tired he was. He was in his own house and he craved sleep. He looked at Billy. The expression on her face told him how ardently she wished she were at home.

  “Let’s take a nap,” he said. “A real one.” He took her gently by the elbow. “I’m falling down. Come and curl up next to me.”

  He led her down the hallway toward the bedroom, and he could feel the reluctance in her step. It was like walking in a dream: so familiar, so out of context. The walls of the bedroom were butter yellow and on the bed was the huge blue and white coverlet Vera had commissioned, a reproduction of an early American design called Lonesome Pine Tree.

  Suddenly Billy bolted. “Not here,” she said.

  Of course Francis had known all along that Billy was not going to lie down with him in his own bedroom. He knew that if they were to lie down at all it would be in the guest room, which was very drafty. Francis loved these demonstrations of Billy’s reluctance. Since such intense resistance did not prevent her from being with him, was that not a declaration of love?

  As they walked down the hall Francis felt his throat go hot. It might have been ferocious sadness, or he might be getting the flu. If he did get the flu he would give it to Billy—a truly shared experience.

  In his bones he knew that this was the last time Billy would ever wander around his house an
d he wanted her there. He felt he was laying in a store of memories almost as you stock a pantry with emergency supplies.

  The guest room was cold. In the snow, the light from the window was milky blue. There was not a sound except the sounds houses make when they seem to breathe. Francis felt he could not bear the depths of his feelings in the silent room.

  “Jesus, it’s freezing,” he said. “Hop under this quilt and warm me up.”

  It was Billy who fell asleep at once. Francis closed his eyes. His bones hurt. This afternoon would be as if etched in glass: bright, hard, and clear. It was his to have: he could conjure it up whenever he wanted, wherever he was.

  Billy stirred in his arms. Francis stirred, too. He was half asleep and he was thirsty, but he was too tired to know just what it was he was thirsty for.

  Swan Song

  Just before Thanksgiving, during a freak hot spell, Francis Clemens and Billy Delielle decided to part. They had come to this conclusion many times before—Billy was usually the instigator. She had tried to break up a number of times. Being married and having a love affair made her frantic, although she often got the sense from Francis that he had been married for so long it hardly counted.

  Billy was glum and cranky. In this sultry weather, she was crankier than usual. She pushed her lank brown hair off her face with an exasperated gesture Francis had seen thousands of times.

  “I think we ought to have a serious talk,” Billy said. “I mean, what passes for serious talk between you and me.”

  Francis, who had been standing in her stuffy kitchen for half an hour, was braced.

  “I feel we talk on a very high level,” he said. “But of course you mean you think we ought to break up.”

  “Breaking up is what teenagers do,” Billy said.

  “And as adults we should find some more mature and noble method,” said Francis.

  “Yes,” said Billy, who managed not to look at Francis but at her toaster. “This can’t be doing anyone any good. I don’t like sneaking around with you or waiting until our mates are away. Besides, you take up all my time blathering on the telephone.”