He lifted the sheaf of papers from the chaise; she seemed suddenly to guess his intent and tried to grab them back. For a brief moment they struggled. “We don’t always have to be weaklings, do we?” he asked. “Do we? Do we?” Then as he began to tear them, bits of paper flew about the terrace in the breeze. They clung to each other. Suddenly they both began to laugh, even though they were both already crying.
“DO YOU BELIEVE IN CHANGE?”
It was a Sunday afternoon late in August. The California sun had been blazing with such fierceness all day that the temperature there in the Central Valley had been well over a hundred since noon—the same still, dry heat that characterized Valley weather from June to October. As the two of them sat in the parked car, tall young men in dungarees walked by with lazy strides, turning now and then to watch the girls in the park, who wandered carelessly in damp cotton dresses, scuffing the sand under the swings by the tennis courts. As a convertible passed slowly, the boys turned and the girls in the car gave them provocative looks; then the car speeded up and turned the corner. The pace of the day had slowed, too, to a tempo of carelessness and ease as the sun stretched long, reflective fingers through the shroud of leaves that hung over the street. A leaf fell and caught in the vent of his car. The first leaf of autumn, Mark thought.
“Do you have to use that?” she asked. “Do you have to use that cigarette holder?”
He held it self-consciously. “I quit smoking for a long time,” he explained. “Then I started up again two or three weeks ago.”
She didn’t answer him or seem interested any more. Instead, she put her arm on the frame of the car window and looked across the park. The tennis balls fell from the rackets with a slow pop … pop. “It’s getting late,” she said.
He watched her—her slim, tanned legs below her white shorts, her bare feet placed firmly on the floor of the car. “I had forgotten how short you are,” he said.
“I’ve done my hair differently,” she said.
“I like it,” he said. “It’s very attractive.”
“It’s very short.”
The leaf trapped in the open vent fluttered, then another leaf fell and rested for a moment on the hood. “I’d like to make these Sunday visits a regular thing,” he said softly. “That is, if you have no objection.”
She seemed to think about this. “I have no objection,” she said finally. “Only I—let’s see—I may be busy on some Sundays.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mean that it has to be like clockwork, like a rigid schedule or anything. Just on Sundays when it’s convenient for you.”
“I’d like to have some notice of when you’re coming,” she said, “some notice in advance.”
“That’s why I thought we could make it more or less a standing date,” he said. “So there won’t be a lot of bother and fuss ahead of time. You could drop me a line.…”
“I’m a little confused,” she said. “I don’t really understand why these visits should begin now. After all, it’s been over a year. Billy is nearly six months old, and you evidently haven’t felt it was necessary to pay a visit before this. And theoretically, I suppose, you could have.”
“I’ve been down before,” he said. “You know that.”
“Once,” she said, “when it was hardly convenient.”
“Is that the only time you know about?”
“I know about the time when I was in the hospital, trying to hang on to the baby, and you came at ten o’clock at night and woke up my mother and created a scene on our front steps.”
He knew he had to watch his words carefully. “Actually,” he said, “I came down here four other times. Didn’t they tell you?”
“No.”
“The last time was very pleasant. William called the police to order me off the property.”
“William is my brother-in-law,” she said. “He had my best interests at heart.”
He thought to himself, We must not quarrel. “Look,” he said, “I could just telephone you, couldn’t I, ahead of time to see whether or not you’re busy?”
“Well,” she said, “I really think I’d better go over it with Mr. Gurney and get his opinion.”
He had placed himself on fragile ground, he realized. So he decided to let it drop there, not to press it any further. “Very well,” he said. “Whatever you think.”
“Do you want to go inside now?” she asked.
“All right.”
They got out of the car and he followed her up the walk to the house. The pavement was still hot and she walked gingerly on her bare feet.
In the living room, while he waited for her, the maid appeared.
“Hello, Doris,” he said. “I’ve got thousands—literally thousands—of green trading stamps for you. I’ve been saving them for you for over a year—every time I buy gas. When I bought my car I paid cash for it and asked for the green stamps, but it seems that that’s against the rules. I don’t want them myself. I’ll bring them down the next time I come.”
Presently Helen came down the stairs carrying the baby.
For a long while they sat on the floor with Billy between them. He talked to the baby in a soft voice, and Helen sat cross-legged, saying nothing. “Do you like it here?” he asked. “Do you like it here in this pretty house? Do they feed you enough? I don’t think they feed you enough—tell Mommy that you’re nothing but a bag of bones, just a bag of bones.” To let Helen know that he wasn’t serious he laughed as he said these things.
“Where did he get the little red suit?” he asked her.
“It was a present,” she said. “Someone gave it to him.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, it’s very handsome,” he said. “Yes, it’s very handsome. And look how handsome he is—much handsomer than even his mommy or his daddy. Who does he look like?”
“Everyone has a different opinion,” she said.
“I think he looks like my father,” Mark said. “I don’t think he looks like either of us.”
The baby started crawling slowly across the floor toward him.
“I think he knows me,” he said. “I think he knows who I am. I think he knows by instinct. Do you believe in instinct?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I do. I think we know our fathers and mothers by instinct. Does he act this friendly with everyone?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, anyway,” he said.
“He’s really very good.”
“Isn’t he large? How much did he weigh when he was born?”
‘Seven thirteen.”
“Is that average?”
“Fairly, yes.”
“May I pick him up?”
“Yes, but don’t get your face close to him if you have a cold.”
“I’m just getting over one,” he said. He picked the baby up and held him on his knee. “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man, bake me a cake as fast as you can.… I’ve forgotten the rest.”
“So have I.”
“We must look that one up.”
The room grew dark, and looking up from the baby now and then, he watched Helen as she sat with her face averted, turned to the shadows. He thought that her features had attained a sharpness, an angularity. There was something in her face that he couldn’t recognize. Wondering whether it was time or pain or suffering, he asked, “Is he much trouble?”
“All babies are trouble.”
“Night feedings—that sort of thing?”
“Not any more.”
Doris came through the room with a tray of drinks. “Your mother wants to know if you’d like one,” she said to Helen.
“No, thank you, Doris.”
Doris went through the living room and out to the terrace. Outside, voices rose and fell in conversation. Some of the voices Mark recognized. “When are you going to Bermuda, Mrs. W?” William was asking.
“Oh,
never, never, never! Or so it seems with all the work I have to do,” Mrs. Warren answered.
Ice tinkled in the glasses on the terrace.
“I suppose you want one,” Helen said.
“What?”
“A drink. Do you? I suppose I could get you one.”
“No, thank you,” he said.
Nothing has changed, he thought. The smell of Scotch whiskey on a Sunday afternoon on the terrace, the sound of drinks being mixed, new bottles opened, case after case of Scotch for week after week of Mrs. Warren’s entertaining. There was a new voice outside now.
“Arlene, what’s happened?” a woman’s voice said.
“Nothing, dear. Come on in. Mark is here to see the baby.”
“Oh! I’ll come back later. Fred and I thought we could buy you a drink.”
“No, no! Sit down. We’re having drinks out here. They’re in the living room. Please, I want you both to stay.”
“I don’t drink any more,” Mark said to Helen.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It was one of the things that ruined us, wasn’t it? My drinking.”
“It was the thing,” Helen said.
“Yes. So I stopped altogether. It wasn’t easy.”
“No, I imagine it wasn’t,” she said. “Are you an Alcoholics Anonymous or something?”
“No, this was a thing that I did all by myself.”
“It was always so funny with you,” she said. “I never could understand. After all, all of us here in town—we’ve always managed to drink. But somehow we always managed to maintain. You never could. With you, it was always ugly.”
“Yes, I know. I don’t make any excuses for myself. That’s why,” he said, “I thought possibly we might try again.”
She looked at him now. It was as though for the first time since he’d arrived she was genuinely interested in what he was saying. “Look,” she said, “we’re not children any more. There’s no point in fooling ourselves, is there? You can’t just ask me to forget—like that—ever. What about the thing with the bureau drawer? What about the time you cut my hair? What about the night that fellow came home with you—and I—” her voice almost broke—“and I was there waiting? And you said all those terrible things. And the night Father died and you were nowhere to be found. Oh, you were there—sometimes—but never really there. I needed you then, Mark.”
“I know, I know,” he said. He thought, I must be careful, careful. We must not quarrel. He turned to the baby.
“And when the princess awoke the next morning, she found that her frog had turned into a handsome prince,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Helen asked.
“I’m trying to remember some of the stories.”
“What stories?”
“The stories I used to be told when I was little.”
He held the baby’s head between his hands. “I’m glad I met you,” he whispered. “I’m glad I came. Do you realize it took a lot of courage to come down here? Do you know that?”
“A lot of what?” she asked.
“Courage.”
For hours before, he had driven around the town, noticing changes, noticing the things he remembered. He had driven past the Warrens’ house three or four times, afraid to stop, and then he had stopped driving around it, afraid that someone in the house would notice him. Then he had left the car on the other side of the park and got out and walked through it, watching the tennis players, not daring to look across to the white house that showed through the trees. He found three comic books on a park bench and sat down to read them. Mothers with their children wandered in the park, and from time to time he would look up to see if by some chance … Then he had left the park and walked down the street, knowing what he must do and thinking, No, no, I can’t … I haven’t the courage. I can’t go there, ever.… And then asking himself the question: What do you want from them? Do you want the police again and the bitterness and the locked doors and drawn curtains and the voice from the upstairs window: “Go away. We have all decided …”
Then in the ease and shadows as the day darkened he had felt better, and he walked back to his car and drove it to the house, got out, and walked up to the front door. Mrs. Warren had answered the door herself.
“Is this what they told you you could do?” she asked him.
“No, but I’d like very much to see the baby,” he said. “If that’s possible and you don’t mind.”
She had seemed undecided. “Well, I think he’s asleep right now,” she said.
“Then later, perhaps?”
“Well—well, come in, Mark. Come in and sit down. I’ll tell Helen you’re here.”
Their baby sat on his knee now and Helen said, “You’d better give him back-to me. It’s almost time for his supper.” He rose and handed her the baby.
“My darling,” she said. “My own darling little boy!”
“Helen …” he began.
“Yes?”
“Helen, if you’re going to feed him, could I watch?”
“It’s not very interesting to watch him have his dinner, actually.” she said. “He spits up everything sometimes. He—”
“I don’t want to interfere with any schedule.”
“Perhaps some other time, Mark. I think he’s had enough excitement for one day.”
“Yes, yes, I agree.”
Only hold out a little longer, he thought. Only one, two minutes more. “Next time I come …” he began.
“When will that be, Mark?”
“Next Sunday?”
“Very well. Only I think—no, I don’t think so. No, I really don’t think you can. I think you’d really better work through Mr. Gurney, and perhaps after I have my decree—”
“I don’t want a divorce.”
“Well, I’m afraid there’s very little you can do about it.”
He started to say something abrupt again, but he checked himself. “All right,” he said. “I’ll work through Mr. Gurney.”
As they talked she was slowly but surely walking him toward the door.
“Let me hold him once more,” he said. He took him and then blurted it out—not only to her but also to the child in his arms—in the form of a question that his child could not at this time answer and which required no answer from anyone else. It was an assertion, too, of what he believed his own rights in the matter to be. “When you’re older,” he said, “you and I will spend a great deal of time together. We’ll take trips and go hunting together, and you’ll spend at least half your life with me—because you’re half mine, anyway.”
“If you have a cold,” Helen said, “I’d rather you didn’t hold your face so close. Here, let me have him.”
Suddenly, as the baby was lifted from his arms to hers, he began to cry, and Mark, taking him back almost roughly, held on to his son desperately, urgently. “Oh, it’s a bum life,” he said. “Isn’t it? Isn’t it a bum life? What’s to become of you?”
“He’ll be all right,” Helen said.
“Do you believe in change?” he asked her. “Do you believe that people have the ability to change? That’s what it all hangs upon, isn’t it—whether you do or do not believe that in over a year I might have changed?”
“I don’t believe in fairy tales,” she said. “Frogs turning into princes …”
“I’m talking about the future. I don’t give a damn about the past. But this is the future, right here.”
“Your cold, Mark,” she said, and firmly took the baby away from him.
She opened the door and he stepped outside. The baby was quiet in her arms, and knowing that the moment, the visit, was nearly over, Mark turned and went halfway down the steps.
An orange giant of a moon topped the trees and on everything was a pale light in a haze of fog that floated in from the riverbanks. In the pools of moonlight on the street a boy went by on a bicycle. Suddenly Mark saw that she had followed him and was standing close behind him with the baby in her arms.
; “I believe, I believe,” she whispered. Helen took a step backward from him and held out her free hand.
“Next Sunday is all right,” she said. “Just come, I mean. You don’t have to call Mr. Gurney.”
He felt he had to tell her now or he never would. “Helen,” he said, “look—it isn’t just Billy that I want to see. Can you imagine why I really came?”
“Yes.”
“Billy was only a toe hold—a way to get my foot in the door. I wanted to see you, Helen.”
In the dark she turned to him intensely. Her voice was soft, urgent. “Meet me somewhere,” she said. “Somewhere where we can just talk and be alone. Because I want you too, Mark. I always have—I’ve always known—but there were always so many others, so many people who intruded, who had their own ideas, and who started telling me what to do: Mother, William, Mr. Gurney. Did they ever think that this was a problem just for the two of us, the three? Did they?” Her voice broke. “I mean, we do have things to say to each other and we do have to be alone, don’t we?”
“Then you do believe,” he said.
“Yes. Let’s make a date. You can pick me up somewhere, anywhere you say, and we’ll go somewhere and just talk and be alone.”
“Oh, my darling,” he said.
She began to laugh now, almost hysterically. “Write to me and disguise your writing. Oh, darling, isn’t this like a B movie? Oh, darling, isn’t it? But it will have a happy ending, won’t it? Don’t B movies always have happy endings?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, yes.”
He knew he must leave her now or burst with happiness. “I’ll write to you,” he said.
Behind them, the door of the house opened. “Helen, dear,” Mrs. Warren called, “Auntie Alice is on the phone from Santa Monica.”
Helen pulled her hand away from his. “Good night,” she whispered.
Mark unlocked his car and got inside. “I don’t believe in miracles overnight,” he said aloud to no one. “No, I don’t believe in miracles overnight, but perhaps in time—” He had to wait a moment before driving away until the tears that filled his eyes went away—tears of happiness and misery. He wanted to feel this new thing, this queer promise, and suddenly the weeks and months ahead seemed longer and harder than any of the whispering, churning months behind.
Heart Troubles Page 3
