Chapter Ten
When George Furmon awoke on Friday morning, he was immediately aware that something important had happened the night before, and before he remembered what it had been, he knew that it had been important and troublesome and not flattering.
He remembered then and rolled over heavily in his bed and saw that she was not yet up, was in fact sleeping. She faced him, her mouth grave and still and her eyes shadowed in sleep, looking younger than she had any right to look, and looking like a stranger, which he felt was obscurely unfair. Her arm was bare, elbow bent, the hand made into a loose fist, which rested near her chin.
The clock was on the night table between their beds. It faced her. He reached out and turned it around and saw that the alarm would go off in another ten minutes. He reached out cautiously a second time and turned the alarm off. And frowned at her.
It had been a damn funny evening. She had acted a bit strange when he had come home. He kept catching her staring at him. Fourteen years of marriage had generated considerable caution and he made a brief survey of his conscience and began to feel a bit indignant because his conscience was quite clear. After Mrs. Bailey had been taken down to the village and after Sandy was asleep, Alice began to make frequent trips to the kitchen, coming back each time with an alarmingly potent-looking highball. That was totally unlike her. By nine o’clock she had definitely started to come apart. Her face had fallen into a new pattern, a looseness.
He threw his magazine aside and said, “What the hell are you trying to do to yourself?”
“Courage. That’s what. Courage out of a bottle, dear.”
“Courage for what?”
“Con … confession.”
Sharp alarm pierced him and faded quickly as he quieted his own unreasonable fear and managed a smile. “What have you been up to, girl?”
She laughed and it was a laugh that was not like her. “It’s what I haven’t been up to. Isn’t that funny. A sin of omiss … omission.”
“Okay,” he said patiently. “What haven’t you done?”
“Don’t look at me. Look other way, dear. Then let me talk and talk.”
She rambled on for a long time. Her voice was blurred, and sometimes the sentences didn’t end at all. He looked rigidly at the wall. Though her words were blurred, there was no mistaking her meaning. Frigidity. Pretense. All these years. And the feeling that he had gone away from her somehow. Not sharing any significant part of his life with her. Restlessness. Walks. And today something confused about seeing a young farmer and his wife. He couldn’t quite get that part of it. But whatever it was she saw, or hadn’t seen, had given her a new look at herself, or something like that, and now maybe for the first time she was ready to be a part of the physical side of marriage, but she couldn’t be if she didn’t have his help and his patience, and please help her, and please let her share more of his life. Rambling and rambling into a lot of incoherence that ended in tears. It wasn’t a damn bit like Alice. My God, she even looked sort of messy. And it was an awful blow to a man’s pride to find out that all these years, all these fourteen lousy years she had just been enduring him and pretending to like it just to make him feel okay about doing it. A hell of a blow to your pride. Like being told you were impotent or something.
And so he had taken her up to bed, and it had been the damnedest situation imaginable. Such a long drawn-out business. And her crying again and saying it was no use, she couldn’t, she couldn’t and it was a mistake to tell him and all. But him persisting, almost out of some sort of dull and obstinate anger, fraying his own nerves, exhausting himself, but being gentle and patient and not letting her quit until finally, to his enormous relief, all the rising shuddering tension went out of her unmistakably, and she made a strange cry that he had never heard from her before. And thanked him and thanked him in a dull, blurred voice making him feel embarrassed and strange, and then cried softly for a short time, crying her way into sleep.
The damnedest night he’d ever spent. A man didn’t know where the hell he was. Stranger still when you thought that after fourteen years of marriage this was the first actual sexual experience she had had. Ridiculous. And he wished he didn’t feel like such a damned fool about it.
Now there was this other stuff, about shutting her out of his life. He wondered why he should have the crazy feeling that he’d shut both of them out of his life. Man couldn’t shut himself out of his own life, could he?
He got up with bearlike stealth and lumbered into the bathroom. He patted his belly disapprovingly. Got to get some of this lard off. Three months over forty. Too young for all this slob. Tough on the heart. Shortens your life. And can’t be so damn appetizing for her to have to look at all this fat gut. That was an entirely new thought and it shocked him a little. My God, George, instead of just talking about it to yourself every morning, why don’t you do something about it. Get along without all those calories that come in a bottle for a while. Why spend your evenings in a fat stupor? That can’t be much fun for her either. God knows she was no prize after the sixth drink last night. You any different? Any better?
It was hard to realize that it was Alice in there still sleeping. You adjust to one woman and then find out you have a different one to deal with. Had her all sized up. Good-looking girl you could take anywhere. [Don’t take her out much, though.] Not a hell of a lot of sparkle to her but nice manners. A little on the cool-acting side. Never thought of her as frigid. Just not too eager for a romp. Sure she disapproved of a lot of things, but you were doing all right by her and the kids. Where’s the complaint?
You know damn well where it is, George.
Funny that it should seem like it was the first time, last night, that either of them had really talked for years and years.
And that wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. To either of them. They used to talk. Good talk. Lots of it. Fun, too.
After his shower, when he went back into the bedroom, she was in her robe and sitting at her dressing table, brushing her hair. She gave him a quick guilty glance and her face turned pink and she got up quickly and came to him and hid her face against his chest.
“Oh, George, I’m so ashamed.”
“No need to be.”
“I got awful messy, I know. But … I had to or I couldn’t say what I had to say.”
“I’m glad you said it. You should have said it a long time ago.”
“I’ve cheated both of us, George. I … love you.”
“I love you too, Alice.”
“I’m saying the word a different way. I really love you.”
“Fourteen years married and we start the morning like this?”
She looked up at him, her face still red. “One day married, George. If you want to help me pretend.”
“I want to. It’s a hell of a lot of time wasted, though.”
“Not wasted, really. Maybe it couldn’t have happened before. But …” She hid her face against him again. “… easier next time. I feel … well, like Christmas morning and looking under the tree.”
“For gosh sakes!”
“Don’t you dare laugh at me, George. Don’t you dare!”
“I won’t.”
“You should, though. I’m a silly woman.”
“Look, girl. How about this. Let’s take a trip. The two of us. Talk Bailey into staying here with Sandy.”
“Let’s!” she cried and looked up at him eagerly.
He looked at her, puzzled. “You know, you are a damn good-looking female.”
“Pish and tush.”
An hour later he drove up to the job on Hillside Heights where he was building four houses on speculation. He hummed to himself as he parked the car and walked across the raw dirt of an excavation. He stooped and looked around him. It did not look the way it had looked yesterday. He had the feeling that he was not looking at it with the same eyes he had used yesterday.
Janitz, the foreman in charge of the job, came out of the house. He was a bitter, spidery-looking man with continua
lly angry eyes.
“George, damn it, I don’t mind cull lumber. I don’t mind using scrap. But look at this stuff we got to use for studding. It’s green. It leaks sap. It’s going to warp so bad it’ll pull the nails the hell out.”
George beamed at him and said, “Gooood morning, Herman.”
Herman Janitz stared at him. “What’s with you?”
“It is a fine, fat, lovely morning, Herman.”
“The big saw is broke again.”
“Smell that air, Herman.”
“McCarthy didn’t show again. I think he’s on another binge, George.”
“There’s nothing so rare as a day in June, Herman.”
“What’s with you? At this point you’re supposed to be jumping up and down, George. You’re supposed to be cussing so loud they can hear you in town.”
“What’s with me? Herman, I do believe I’m in love.”
“Act your age, George.”
“I am acting my age. I was eighteen yesterday. Let’s see the lumber, Herman. Get somebody to load the big saw in the back end of my car. If you see McCarthy, tell him he picked a lovely time of year to get drunk.”
“You baffle me, George.”
They looked at the lumber. George clucked. “Have you used any?”
“Just that much.”
“Rip it out and restack it and I’ll have Federal pick it up when they bring some decent stuff.”
“Are you sure you’re all right, George? You’re supposed to tell me to go ahead and use it. You’re supposed to lean into my face and roar. You’re supposed to tell me we’re in this business to make money.”
“Get the saw loaded, Herman.”
George walked slowly around the raw skeletal house. It was like looking at the face of Alice. Like seeing it for the first time. But it had been pleasant to look at her sleeping face. It was not pleasant to look at this house. It was not a happy thing to look at something you were building with greed and spit, just barely squeaking by the building code, setting up a white elephant for some slob to spend the next twenty years carrying on his back. The slob would just love his home when it was spanking new, when the paint and the interior trim covered the hasty, rough carpentry. In a year there would be a dozen things sticking and warping and crumbling. In three years the roof would leak. The fine paint job might last a full year. Wavery flaws in the picture windows, scrap plywood under the kitchen-floor tiles. Cheap labor that left owl eyes around all the nailheads. Cheap glossy plumbing, with a chrome coat so thin it would start to flake before he’d made his third mortgage payment. A nice margin in a deal like this. You didn’t twist the slob’s arm. He wanted the house. He looked at it and liked the smell of it and the newness and he wanted it, and his wife just adored the gay colors of the kitchen.
The other builders knew what you were doing. So did your own crew. But you were smart, all right. That George Furmon, by God, he’s making it while he can. No experimentation. Slap ’em up and sell ’em and get out from under. They all knew it, and it didn’t bother you a damn bit. You could go home every night and forget it. Take on a nice comforting little load and forget it.
Herman came up and said, “The saw’s loaded.”
George gestured toward a pile of cinder block. “Have a seat, Herman. I’d hate to see you fall down.”
Herman sat down warily, staring at George. George sat beside him and gave him a cigar. They lit up. “Herman, what do you think about putting up some good houses? I mean good. Make ’em just as good as we have to when we have an architect who’s on the ball riding our tail. Good inside and out.”
Herman studied the wet end of his cigar. “I would say maybe you are getting smart, George, and I would say I don’t know whether it’s too late or not.”
“What do you mean, Herman?”
Herman studied the cigar for long seconds and then hurled it away. It hit and bounced. He turned and stared at George and his small eyes were angry. “I was on my own. You know that. I had pride. I did a house. It meant something. The name meant something. Go look at my houses. Twenty years ago I built them. Like rocks they are. I made a little money on every one. A little, George. Not as much again as it cost me to build. Okay, I’m a foreman. Does that mean no pride, George? My pride is in my hands. Look, George. These hands. Putting up cheap shacks for people to live in. A hundred times a day I want to puke. I say I can get used to it. I say I don’t have to live in them. Is that any good? Never, George. I’m never used to it. I won’t be. I have to try to do just as good as I can with the crummy materials and the punk labor you give me. I have to keep trying to get better stuff, and you lean in my face and yell about not being in business for love.
“Maybe I am in business for love, George. Maybe that’s what it’s all about. But you better not be kidding me, George. You better mean this. Like I said, maybe it’s too late. You don’t think I know? Stockton Savings won’t take the paper on your houses anymore. That gets around, George. The little people talk. A guy comes to buy. He knows something about building. He looks around. He looks where other people don’t look. And then he looks at me, George. It makes me ashamed. It makes me so my food doesn’t sit good on my stomach, George. A Furmon house. It meant something. Now what? Does any architect tell the customer to get you to build? Not anymore, and you know it. Those jobs come only when the customer knows you personal. So don’t give me any cigar and make jokes and then start roaring and leaning in my face, because this time I quit for good.”
George sat for a long time. He scuffed sand with the side of his shoe.
“I’m ashamed, Herman.”
“That’s good, George. You should be.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before, Herman?”
“Tell you! Tell you? Have you ever listened? For three years I’ve been telling you. Janitz. What does he know? A foreman? Yell in his face. You know what I do? I go home. I build cabinets. Fine wood. Things that are nice to touch. Things for a hundred years. Two hundred. Then I’m happy.”
“What can we do about these four, Herman?”
“Burn down the bastards.”
“I can’t do that. Can’t afford it. We’ll have to use the materials we can’t return. Let’s us take a look at the bill of materials and the specifications and see what we can do.”
“How about labor? Punks and drunks?”
“Can you get some of the old ones back?”
“I think so. I can try.”
“I was going to try to move these at seventeen five, Herman.”
“So?”
“They’ll move better at fifteen.”
“Good. That takes away some shame.” Both men were standing. Herman stuck out his hand. George took it. Herman said, “It isn’t a mistake, George. Believe me. You know the cream is off the market. They got to be good to move. And they got to be better to live in. Good materials. These houses, George, they are dull. Little rooms like boxes. We can make them like that one we did on Treydon Road.”
“The Wilcox house? Stop dreaming, Herman. That was an eighty-five thousand dollar job.”
Herman frowned. “Here is what I mean. That house had air, light, a good place to live. So does the wood have to be redwood? Does the glass have to be Duo-therm? Does there have to be rubber tile, not asphalt? Does the stone have to come from some bottom of a lake out in Michigan, for God’s sake. And can’t there be two bedrooms, not five? The materials, they can be honest. These houses, George, twenty years ago I was building the same design only better.”
“See what you can dream up. With cost estimate, Herman.”
Later, when George left, Herman stood with his hands on his hips watching him go. “What did you say happened to you, George?”
“I told you, Herman. I fell in love.”
“That’s bad stuff for a married man, George. Especially with kids.”
“I fell in love with my wife, Herman.”
“George, you better wear a hat out in the sun like this. Even if you are crazy, it is a g
ood thing. Second thought, George—skip the hat. Get lots of sun.”
From the Hillside Heights project George drove into the hills south of Stockton, to a fashionable residential district where a crew foremanned by Dug Lister was putting up, on a bid basis, a house for some friends named Duffy. The house had been designed by a clever young architect named Raymond Riker. The bid had been fifty-four thousand, six hundred, and George knew he had been on the invitation list only through the insistence of Duffy. He had put in the low bid, banking on Dug Lister to take full advantage of the relative inexperience of Raymond Riker. But it wasn’t working out too well. Riker seemed to have a knack of arriving on the job at the critical moments. George had begun to worry about breaking even.
He parked by the house, went in. Dug Lister was a burly man with a very small head. An old throat injury had reduced his voice, long ago, to a husky whisper. And Lister had seemingly acquired all the conspiratorial mannerisms to go with his confidential voice. He was a man with a habit of looking back over his shoulder with quick nervous movements of his head. He was not one to inspire confidence. Yet on this sort of a project he was invaluable.
Lister nodded at George and came over and they went outside together.
“I was hoping you’d show, George.” He squatted on the ground and unrolled a set of the prints and put stones on it to hold it open. “That damn kid hasn’t showed yet, George. I’m stalling a little. I want him to come and look around and go. Then we can do this,” he whispered. George, hunkering down beside him, listened while Dug explained. It was a clever evasion of the specifications, done in such a way that the evidence could be concealed quickly and thoroughly. George estimated that it would save somewhere around five hundred dollars.
Contrary Pleasure Page 19
