by May Sarton
Finally, as the silence grows, I lift my head and see the misery. “Was it David?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, slowly, as though she cannot believe what she is saying. “My husband pushed me up against the refrigerator and hit me so hard, so many times, I fell. I can’t believe that David could do this. He said awful things and then he walked out, leaving me on the floor.”
“What made him get into such a state?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s been brewing. David can’t talk about things, you know. He shuts up and broods.”
“Every marriage carries a lot of tension, doesn’t it? I mean, there’s always an outburst sooner or later, and sometimes it clears the air.”
“Violence doesn’t clear the air,” Martha says, still in that cold bitter voice with which she has told the story. “I have to leave. I can’t go back there.”
“Not now, anyway.”
“Never, because I’m not going to change and he’s so furious because I won’t. I won’t go along with having a baby and imprisoning myself for years. I can’t, Harriet,” and now at last, the tears fall. “He says I am abnormal, not a real woman. He treated me with contempt.”
“You know that is frustration and anger. He’s probably feeling pretty sick himself.”
“Maybe he is, but there’s no turning back now. Can’t you see?”
“What I think I see is that you should talk to a psychiatrist, and if possible with David. I have a friend whom you would feel comfortable with, I think: Joe Hunter. He’s quite near here. Why don’t I give him a ring and see if you could make an appointment?”
“First I get battered and then I’m expected to strip myself naked and talk to a stranger. I’m not that crazy.”
I don’t mind the anger. It is a lot healthier than cold bitterness. She is not acting now. She is outraged. “Let’s be practical, Martha. Do you have any money?”
“About five hundred dollars in my savings account.”
“So you could go to a hotel, or motel, which might be cheaper, at least for tonight. Have you a woman friend you could call? What you need right now is support, and not to be alone. Oh, I wish you would see Joe!”
“I don’t need anyone but you.”
“But I’m an old woman and a busy one. What you don’t know yet is that I’m sort of in a fog myself. Thieves broke into the shed and stole all my firewood last night. The same people, I suppose, who have been threatening to drive me out.”
“Dirty work,” Martha says, but her mind is not on that, of course. “I wish I could just stay around here today, sort of pull myself together.”
I knew this was coming, and I shrink from it. The kind of warmth Martha needs I do not have in me to give. I want to get at arranging the new window. I want time to absorb all that has been going on, the shocks of this morning. I have anticipated today as a respite, a quiet time of gathering myself together—and the store.
Martha is watching me intently and when I do not respond she says, “I guess I’m asking too much. You’ve been awfully good, showing my work and all. I suppose I’ve locked in on you like a limpet on a rock,” and for the first time she smiles, and I can smile at last myself.
“The trouble is I’m no rock, Martha. Besides, if you won’t talk to Joe, I do think you should see a doctor, have someone look you over and do something about your eye. What about the Harvard Infirmary? I tell you what,” for I am beginning to see light, “Joan will be here any minute now and she’ll take over. I could drive you there, see what is what, and then take you home and help you pack a suitcase and get you settled. How does that sound?”
“Wonderful.” Tears are flowing again.
I decide to send Martha upstairs to my apartment while I confer with Joan, who has just walked in. I need badly to get away from Martha’s problems for a few minutes, and I hope she would like to have a chance to wash and lie down on my bed, or so I suggest.
Joan and her cynical outlook on women’s lives are a tonic, and her fury about the stolen wood does me good. I call Joe at his office and he is on the job at once, saying he will try to get in touch with David and tell him where Martha can be reached. “My guess is David is in a pretty bad way himself by now, and,” he adds, “I can see Martha at four if you can persuade her to come. She’s in a tough situation, isn’t she?”
“Joe, I’m at sea,” I say. “You know all about these things, and I feel ignorant and cross with both of them at the moment.”
I tell him about the wood and he says, “Hey, you appear to be on the front line in several wars at the same time!”
“Thanks, Joe, but I’ve got to go now and try to be a nurse.”
At this he chuckles. “Not quite in your line?”
“Not at all in my line, I’m afraid.” But I did open the bookstore as a haven for women, I remind myself, so I am getting exactly what I asked for. Perhaps it does have its humorous side.
As often happens, what I had dreaded turns out to be illuminating. In the first place, Martha is silent as we drive to the infirmary, and the fact that she is, that we are in a shared silence, does something new for my state of mind about her. I like her better than I thought I ever would. Of course, she is very nervous about being examined and we have to wait almost half an hour, sitting beside a boy who looks young even to be a freshman and is on crutches, a broken ankle playing ice hockey, he explains.
When Martha comes out after a fairly short time, she looks relieved although the black eye is still visible behind her glasses. She doesn’t speak till we are in the car. “The doctor said I was lucky. No broken bones, only bruises, a strained muscle in my left arm, and this damned eye—I’m supposed to put raw steak on it.”
“Would hamburger do?” For some reason my question sends Martha into almost hysterical laughter. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s so like you,” she says. “You’re so practical. Of course you are thinking that hamburger is cheaper. Admit it!”
“Yes.” She is right, of course. “Old New Englander that I am!”
Now I sit in the car while Martha goes in and packs, after making sure that David’s car is not in the yard. It is wonderful to be able to sit still with nothing to do but wait and think things over. In a way it is wonderful, but I find almost at once that the episode of the wood has damaged my sense of myself, of being myself after the Globe article, of somehow living my life as I want to live it. What if there are people around, and there appear to be, who do not want me to live the life I imagine, who will do almost anything to break it up, to harm me and the store? What then? I have kept fear at bay lately, but now, on this disturbed morning, maybe just plain fatigue has let it come in again. I light a cigarette and smoke it slowly, but it does not calm the strange palpitations in my chest. I can feel the sweat on my upper lip. What can I conjure up against this tide of fear?
Joe and Eddie, of course. They are there. They arrive like guardian angels when I need them. Andrew, yes, he has become an ally and a friend after all the years when that seemed impossible. Even Fred’s teasing cheers me up. After all, I am not alone and it is interesting that these defenders turn out to be men. But I have left Joan out, and she is surely the most vital person for brushing off the moths.
Nevertheless I wish I could catch one of the hooligans and get the police involved. Being a sitting duck is not easy for me. I need action. And what will they attack next? And how many of them are there who consider the neighborhood their possession and look on me as evil and damaging to it?
Homophobia—the word had not been in Vicky’s or my vocabulary. Now it is beginning to loom rather large in my consciousness. The word causes conflict for me because I did not intend the store to be a meeting place or rallying point for lesbians. I did not want to be pushed into a corner. At this point Martha startles me.
“Hey, here I am! Sorry to have kept you waiting so long.”
I have been literally lost in thought and have no idea how long she has taken. “Where are we going?” I ask.
; “I think that motel, Quality Inn, on Mass. Avenue. Old New Englanders appreciate that it is cheap.”
“You direct me,”
Martha has brought only a small suitcase and a tote full of painting things, and I judge both to be good signs. One, that she does not mean to leave for good and, two, that she may even try to paint in the motel. Things are looking up. I park and go with her to be sure they have a room and, while she signs the register, I take a pad out of my purse and write down Joe Hunter’s name and office address, which I fortunately remember is not far from Harvard Square, and note that she has an appointment at four, if she wants it.
“Are you going to be all right?” I ask, as we stand waiting for the elevator. I hand her the note, which she reads without comment and puts in her pocket.
“I think I’ll go to bed and sleep,” she says.
“Good.”
“Thanks for everything.”
I flee. Maybe it is not the kindest thing, but I feel I have to. I want to get back to the store. I want to get away.
In the car I remember that the Blackstones have a cat called Tuggle. What about the cat? Well, David will presumably come home sooner or later. Why ever do I remember the cat? And why does an animal in distress affect me more than a person in distress?
When I get back to the store I am delighted to see that Marian Tuckerworth is sitting talking with Joan. A grown-up person is a relief at this point. I have liked her from the first day she came in and asked me the question “Why a women’s bookstore?”
Joan gives me a message from Joe to say he has reached Mr. Blackstone and not to worry. Then she asks if I have had any lunch.
“Good heavens, no. No wonder I felt sort of shaky in the car just now, waiting for Martha! Hunger explains what I imagined might be fear.”
“Let me go out and get you a sandwich,” Marian Tuckerworth says at once. And I am almost as eager to get my teeth into a ham and cheese on rye and a chocolate milk as I am to get my hands on all the books and start arranging the new window, so I accept her kindness gladly.
“Well,” says Joan, “it’s been quite a day, so far!”
“Now we can get back to what really matters. Let’s see what the new window will look like. Oh,” I see Joan has managed to clear out the old window for me, “that’s great. We can begin right now.”
It is an immense satisfaction to stand in the window while Joan hands me George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Mrs. Pankhurst, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Louise Bogan, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Maya Angelou, Willa Cather—a litany of names. But pretty soon I am taking up too much room and have to sit sideways while I shift the books around.
“It’s a window on women’s world, I see,” says Marian Tuckerworth, after she has stood outside looking in for a moment. “I highly approve,” and she hands me a brown paper bag.
“Let’s sit down. I’m ravenous.” And in the next breath, “What do I owe you?”
“Nothing, Miss Hatfield. I’m only too glad to have been of use.”
While I eat my sandwich and drink a glass of milk from the fridge in the kitchen, Joan and Marian talk. Marian is still having trouble finding volunteers for caretaking and she turns to me to thank me for having suggested she read a new book called Women, Take Care from OWL in California. “Older Women’s League,” I explain. “Their motto, ‘Don’t Agonize, Organize,’ makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?”
“It’s clear,” Marian says, “that organize is just what I have to do, and that means a board and some professional who can size up volunteers and perhaps even train them. An office, I suppose. Oh dear me, there is a huge abyss between a good idea and a working organization, isn’t there?”
“How will you finance all this?” Joan asks.
“I don’t know. But I do have some contacts in the banks, and maybe I can extract at least interest and advice. I think I can put a hundred thousand into the till myself. That way I can go ahead without waiting.”
“Hey, that’s a lot of money,” Joan says. “Should you invest so much? What about your own old age?”
“But if I can show how great the need is and prove that such a center for helping caretakers really works it will be easier to raise money from outside.”
“Hospice began in a small way and look how it has spread,” I offer.
“What will you call the organization?” Joan asks.
I am so delighted to be talking with Marian about such a serious matter I forget how tired I am. “Why not be blunt? Caretakers Help, Inc.”
“Well, it needs thinking about. How about your coming on the board, Miss Hatfield?”
I swallow. It is suddenly clear to me in a bright gaudy light that I have become something of a pariah. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Mrs. Tuckerworth.”
“Why not? And do call me Marian. I feel we are old friends.”
“Well, Marian, you are going to have to appeal to solid citizens for money, and solid citizens are going to need help. My name might scare them away.”
“Oh it’s not as bad as that, Harriet,” Joan quickly intervenes. “All this will blow over.”
Marian looks mystified.
“Let’s drop it,” I say. “I can give you some names that would be of help. Angelica Lamb, for instance.”
“Splendid. I recognize the name, of course,” and Marian gets up to go. “Thanks awfully. You have cheered me. I had begun to feel rather overwhelmed, standing at the foot of Mount Everest alone.”
As she goes out Nan Blakeley comes in. I had hoped so much she would come back, and here she is, looking quite beautiful in a red coat and red shoes, smiling her expectant smile.
“Miss Hatfield, I’ve been trying to get back to this heaven for days, but little Serena has flu. She’s the one who is only four, so I couldn’t. Then my mother flew in from New York and she’s reading nursery rhymes to Serena. I want my kids to grow up with poems in their heads right from the start.”
“Well, I was hoping to see you again,” I say.
“Good. I looked at the window. It’s stunning. There are so many women’s lives I know nothing about. Do you have extras for sale? I wouldn’t want to spoil that window!”
“Of course. What is your pleasure?”
“Maybe that big fat biography of Willa Cather.”
“That I can provide.”
“I read a lot of her in college—I went to Hunter—but somehow not a biography, though I suppose it’s clear that the Nebraska novels, anyway, have elements of autobiography.” She is standing by my desk as we talk. “I’m babbling away, I’m afraid, interrupting your work. You just can’t imagine the relief it is to be in an adult world for a half-hour! Talk about books! Oh my!”
“I’m not working. It’s been a humdinger of a day so far and talking about books is what this old body needs. Come over and sit down, why don’t you?”
“You can’t imagine how sustaining this store is. It does me good just to know it’s there when I get to cooking macaroni and cheese or even making a milkshake—all poor Serena will eat. I’m a good mother, I think, but oh dear me, I’m not a good housekeeper! And the things I like to cook are not the things small children like.”
“But your husband does, I trust.”
“Oh yes. Phil, he comes home ravenous and we eat after the children are in bed—late—but then we open a bottle of wine and we feast.”
“Sounds good to me,” I say, basking in this happy, buoyant woman’s presence.
Now I see her hesitate and look at me for a second as though she were making a decision about something. “Somebody told me you had been threatened. Or is that just gossip? And if not, why would anyone threaten you? I’m curious. Maybe I shouldn’t ask.”
“Some goons in this neighborhood think I’m a bad influence who sells obscene books.”
“You must be kidding!”
“Well …” I wonder how much to explain. “You may have noticed that some of the women who come here are couples. And maybe you saw that
interview in the Globe?”
“No, I must have missed that. We read the Times. I buy the Globe only once in a while.”
I glance over at Joan and she shakes her head. Oh dear, what can I say? “In a nutshell, Mrs. Blakeley, homophobia is the answer. I lived for thirty years with Vicky Chilton until she died. I’m a lesbian.”
Nan takes this in and frowns. What is she thinking? “I see,” she says, and meets my eyes, such a questioning warm look we exchange. “I suppose sometimes that must be something like being black. I’m black and I know what it is to arouse curiosity, pity, and sometimes hatred, or even worse, being patronized. You just have to grow a tough skin or the shell of a turtle,” and she smiles that warm smile that touched me from the first moment I laid eyes on her. Now she says, “You must miss your friend a lot. I wish I had known her.”
“She was a powerful woman dedicated to publishing books she believed in.” I smile at her. “And like you I was glad to take care of things and not be a professional. The publishing house was, I suppose, our child. Never thought of that before, but I see it’s quite true. I miss Vicky but I am rather enjoying not being anyone’s housekeeper, gardener, and general factotum anymore. Does that shock you?” for I catch a questioning look in her eyes.
“Not at all,” she says. “I admire you for being able to build a new life.”
Because I catch some ambivalence in this answer I think it over. “Sometimes I think I haven’t even begun to mourn Vicky. I plunged into the whole business of the bookstore a few months after her death and it has been so absorbing, so enriching, Mrs. Blakeley.”
