Well, enough of that. You’re both busy with being new parents. I was stupid and self-indulgent to mention it. I’m happy to hold a one-way conversation for a time, until you two get your lives settled and are fully adjusted to the change. And when you are adjusted to it, please remember that Aunt Violet and Manny and I would love to have you down for a visit, so we can see the baby and make a fuss over her. Aunt Violet talks of nothing else since we told her about you. Really.
Oh, I hope you like the enclosed beads. I caught them from the Zulus, during Mardi Gras. Quite an accomplishment for a first-time spectator, Mrs. Beaumont says. They’re for Mary, when she’s old enough.
Love,
Dom
The anniversary of their marriage was approaching. Millicent, who kept good track of dates, and was always sending cards and little gifts to far-flung family and friends, called Lily and said she wanted to have a small dinner party for them that Friday, from which they could leave to spend a few hours away. Millicent would take care of the baby, and she would also reserve a room for them in a hotel in town. “I know you’re nursing and you won’t want to be gone the whole night, but a few hours away might be so sweet.”
“Yes,” Lily said. “I’d like that.”
When she told Tyler about it, she felt nervous, and it must’ve shown on her face. He stifled a little laugh and said, “Okay, sure.”
That night, Wednesday, two days before the planned party and night out together, he found the letter from Dominic.
He had come in late from the dealership, his jacket off, and big circles of sweat under his arms, his white shirt already unbuttoned down to the midline of his chest. He took the shirt off, and draped it over the chair in front of her dressing table. A notebook she had been keeping with work on her play fell from the dresser as he moved by it, and the letter dropped out of the notebook. She saw what it was, and couldn’t move to pick it up before he bent and retrieved it, and held it, staring down at it in the dim light, in his undershirt. He stared for a long time, then put it on her dresser. His face betrayed no emotion at all, but when he spoke his voice was edgy—a barely controlled, brimming-with-rage voice. “You had any others from him?”
“No,” she said.
“This didn’t just get here today.”
“I didn’t want to show it to you. I was worried about it.”
“Oh?” Now he seemed about to smile.
“We’ve been—things have been—” She halted, couldn’t say it out to him.
“I see.”
“Tyler,” she said, “I didn’t want to have it between us this weekend. I would’ve shown it to you eventually.”
“Thoughtful of you,” he said.
She followed him into the living room, where he flopped down on the couch and reached over to turn the television on. There were rumblings of trouble in the Middle East, and hints that the Soviet Union was about to go through some sort of upheaval. The networks were working the stories. He kept flicking from one to the other of them.
“I’ve tried to answer him, Tyler. I can’t.”
“Good. Maybe he’ll drop us.”
She sat down at his side and put her hand on his thigh. “Honey—”
“Lily,” he said, “you don’t want to get into this with me.”
She sat there while he watched the reports. On the television were scenes of crowded streets, people waving flags, angry faces openmouthed with screams, anti-American slogans. Saddam Hussein strutted on a balcony. Tyler sat watching, arms folded. Finally he turned to her and said, “Look, I thought we’d ironed this out.”
“We haven’t ironed anything out. We’re marking time, both of us—”
He turned the television off. “Okay, now do you want to tell me what you mean by that? Are you unhappy?”
“We’re both unhappy,” she said. “Look at us.”
“I am not unhappy. I am very happy, in fact. Happier than I have ever been in my whole waste of a life. I was looking forward to an anniversary dinner at my mother’s house and an evening in a hotel with you. My lover. My dear wife.”
“I didn’t want this to ruin it. And if I’d shown it to you, it would’ve, Tyler. Can’t you see that?”
“How about if you just threw it away and didn’t mention it at all, ever? That never occurred to you?”
“I just told you what I was thinking.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“Can’t we talk it out?”
“Okay,” he said, with a murderous calmness, “talk.”
“I love you.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I do. And I understand how you feel about everything—I do. But, Tyler, I keep getting this terrible feeling that we’re violating some law of nature—”
“No, it’s Dominic who’s violating laws of nature, Lily.”
“I can’t believe you could say a thing like that. Do you know how stupid you sound?”
“Stupid? Really?”
“When will you start on your fucking handlebar mustache?” She wrenched herself away from him and went into the bedroom. The baby was asleep, the tiny fingers of one hand visible above the line of the blanket. She moved to the bed. He had come behind her, and when he put his arms around her middle it startled her into a small cry of alarm.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “That was awful, what I said. And stupid. I can’t believe I said it. And I hope we can forget about Mr. Johnson and his handlbar mustache.”
She turned in his arms. “But you must—a part of you must believe it, Tyler. It must be something of what you actually feel.”
“Yes,” he said. “Okay.”
She left a pause.
“I’m not going to pretend I’ve totally beat down the culture I grew up in, Lily. Because I haven’t, and neither have you.”
Again, she was silent.
“I was lashing out, okay? I reached for anything. You reached and brought up Mr. Johnson and his mustache.”
She lay her head on his chest. The sheltering feel of it was troublingly counter to the emotional turmoil inside her. He ran his hand down her back, and when the baby sneezed, they both stood apart and gazed at her. Without taking her eyes from the small, still shape, Lily said, “The trouble is that I don’t believe we can keep it secret, and you do.”
“Yes,” he said.
“You’re willing to keep it from her, and from everyone—and from Dominic—forever.”
“I don’t see what it would hurt, yes.”
“I’d like to keep the secret,” she said, still without looking at him. “Part of me would. But I don’t think we can. I think it poisons everything.”
“You’ve already decided to tell him.”
“No.”
“Well, then what is this about?”
She had no answer.
“Can’t it wait?”
“That’s what we’ve been doing.”
“That’s been all right,” he said. “Hasn’t it?”
“It’s poisoning everything.”
“You know what I’m afraid of, Lily? I’m afraid you’re going to take the baby and go live with Dominic. That’s what has me scared. It’s got me doing and saying things to drive you right to it, too.”
Now she did lift her eyes to him. There was an element of his personality that was objective, that faced straight into his own failings. In the light, he was beautiful, even in this stress; his eyes shone, and his skin looked darker against the white of the undershirt; the fine musculature of his arms gleamed.
“I’m not in love with Dominic,” she said.
“Then—” He couldn’t finish. His voice caught. “I don’t want to lose her or you or this family.”
“That won’t happen,” she told him.
He put his arms around her again and for a long time they simply stood there, casting their double shadow on the sleeping child.
“It won’t change anything between us if we tell the truth,” Lily said. “And I think it might save us.”
/>
He was silent.
“Do you see?”
And he let go. “It’s just that—well, Lily, it—we lied. There’ll be that.”
“But how?”
He shook his head. “Oh, come on. You’re not that obtuse.”
“It happened by accident, before we were together.”
“But we lied. All this time. Lily—we lied to my family. This family. We lied to—to Buddy, for God’s sake. Everybody. Jesus. Don’t you see?”
“I see. I see it clearly, Tyler. But it’s the lie that’s hurting us.”
“Oh, right. Christ. And the truth will set us free.”
“Yes,” Lily said. “Yes. We won’t have to worry about it anymore. We won’t have it scarring all the places between us anymore.”
“Scarring,” he said, incredulously.
She kept still.
“What if Dominic wants something like visiting rights?”
“He can have them.”
Now they were both silent.
Presently, she said, “Can’t he?”
“I don’t—I can’t do this. It can’t—we can’t—I won’t—Oh, Christ, forget it.”
“No, Tyler. Say it. At last we’re really talking about it.”
The baby, as if to remind them, sneezed again, and lifted her head, waking, sending up a small whimper.
“Can’t you—” He stopped himself. “Look. You want me to see. I see, okay? Can’t you see what a terrible admission this is for me, to have to admit a thing like that to everyone? Jesus Christ.”
She had no words to answer him. The truth was that she did see it, and there was nothing she could call up to say. No words would come. The baby had lifted her head again, wobbling. She put part of her left hand, two fingers, into her mouth, and began sucking on them, whining low.
“Christ,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m likely to do.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean by that?”
His eyes narrowed. He seemed to peer at her from a distance, standing two feet away. “I’m trying to tell you how it is. What I’m going through here.” He held his arms out in a gesture of surrender. “I’m describing the territory.”
“I can’t live this way,” she said.
The baby started crying. Lily picked her up and sat down on the bed to nurse her. She needed changing, too. He stood and watched, hands in his pockets, saying nothing. She attended to the baby, seeing him in her peripheral vision, a blur, and finally he moved out of the doorway, muttering something low.
“What?” she said.
He paused. “Nothing. I wish things were different.”
“So do I,” she told him.
He went into the other room, and the rest of the evening they were apart, walls between them. She nursed Mary and fell asleep, and later he came in and moved Mary to the bassinet, and got into bed. Neither of them spoke.
10
THE ANNIVERSARY DINNER was more relaxing than she had imagined it would be. Nick and Sheri were more affectionate with each other than they had seemed in a while. Nick held the baby and made faces, to which the baby responded with bright smiles. Roger Gault was there, and he offered a solemn toast: “To the memory of Brendan Galatierre.” In the long quiet that followed, they all touched glasses. Sheri’s eyes brimmed with tears and she put her head on Nick’s shoulder. Roger had brought music from an Australian singer, and they listened to her as they ate. The singer used odd synthesized sounds, but her voice was quite magically strange and beautiful. Tyler seemed interested without quite being involved. Lily watched him, and when she put her arms around him, he returned the affection. The others were preoccupied with the baby, though there were toasts to the couple on their anniversary. Thunderclouds rolled in from the east, blotting out daylight. Nobody went outside. When dinner was finished, Lily and Tyler were expelled by everyone, playfully, with teasing remarks about how the local hotel clerk would react when he saw the couple’s address at check-in. They got into the Oldsmobile under the threatening sky and drove to the end of the entrance road. As they turned past the broken gate, onto the highway, Tyler honked the horn. Everyone was waving from the Galatierre porch.
Lily put her hand out the window and waved back. When the house passed out of her view, she turned in the seat and looked at her husband, who held the wheel with both hands and seemed rather emptily placid. He said nothing. The sky grew darker, and some heavy raindrops fell, spattering on the window. He put the wipers on, and the rain stopped. The sky was black, but there wasn’t any more rain, and the wipers continued to sweep across the windshield, squeaking each time.
“Why’re you keeping the wipers on?” Lily asked.
He said, “Oh. That was stupid of me,” and turned them off.
After a time, she reached over and touched his arm, and he glanced her way. “Sweet party.”
She unbuckled herself, moved over to the middle of the seat, and lay her head on his shoulder. Perhaps a full minute went by. She saw the buildings of the square. “Honey?” she said.
“We’re almost there,” he told her.
He pulled into the parking lot of the Hilton, found a place, and maneuvered into it. Then he turned the ignition off, sighed, paused a second, patting the top of her hand. They were quiet, sitting close. Lights went back and forth in the road, and altered the dark inside of the car. Finally he opened the door and she stirred, and got out. He carried her overnight case and his own, walking in to the front desk. When he signed for the room, she hung back a little, and then the two of them got on the elevator, and the door closed. The quiet was oppressive, yet she could think of nothing to say. He pushed the button for the seventh floor. The elevator had a window overlooking the main lobby, and she watched the objects and people grow smaller, feeling the increasing height a little unpleasantly. She took hold of his arm. The elevator opened and they separated again, going down the hall, their footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. The room was large and sunny, with a desk, two king-sized beds, and a television in a big armoire whose doors stood open. He set the bags on the desk and flopped down on the first bed, folding his hands on his chest. She sat on the other bed, picked up the remote from the night table, and flicked the television on. A commercial: two women talking about feminine hygiene. She flicked to another channel, and another, and still another. People were in situations of conflict and folly, to the accompaniment of music or laugh tracks, or both. On one channel two men were chasing another through city streets. It was a movie she thought she recognized.
“I think I saw this,” she said.
Nothing.
She turned to look at him. He was lying there watching the television. “Do you want to watch this?” she asked.
“I guess.”
“We don’t have to watch anything, do we?”
His gaze went from the television to her, and then back to the television.
“Tyler, it’s our anniversary.”
He said, “You’re the one who turned the television on.”
She turned it off. The silence shook her. She stood, and unbuttoned her blouse. “You’re right.”
He watched her undress.
“Well?” she said when she had dropped her skirt and stepped out of it.
He sat up, kicked his shoes off, unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants, lifted enough to pull them off, then was sitting again. He had taken his undershorts off with the pants. He unbuttoned his shirt, staring at her. She turned from him as she dropped her slip and panties, not wanting him to see in such glaring light the stretch marks Mary had caused. Finally they were in the bed together and he was kissing her with a kind of cold, mechanical expertise—it was like expertise, calculated, skilled, unfelt. At first she responded, and then she couldn’t, and when he rolled over onto her and thrust himself inside, she moved to get it over with fast, accomplished it, keeping her face turned from him, her arms tight around his neck. He relaxed, let his weight down on her, then removed himself, lying on his back again, saying nothin
g. She waited. He sat up, leaned over her and kissed her breasts, licked and sucked, and for a little while the tactile goodness of it aroused her. She reached for him, took hold of his prick, ran her hands up and down the shaft, and this time he lay back, waiting for her to rise and straddle him. She did so, and he moaned softly, eyes closed. Once more she worked to get it over with fast, but then he had taken her shoulders, and his hands ran down to her lower back, stopping her.
“Wait.”
She was very still, though she continued to contract and relax the muscles around her perineum.
“Now,” he said, urging her. “Now, oh, yes. Now.”
She rose and settled back down, rose again, settled again. She moved her hips back and forth, and he came, and then she herself was close. He had stopped, was merely lying under her, and at last she gave it up, pretended to have satisfied herself, feeling the lie in it and wishing it were otherwise, not for this moment but for all the hours and days ahead. She lay over on her back and sighed, and they were both quiet.
“Good?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t very tender on my part.”
“Tyler, don’t.”
“Working out on each other.”
She said nothing.
“Horizontal athletics.”
“Stop it.”
He leaned over her and picked up the remote and turned on the television. News. She went into the bathroom and drew a bath, and sat in the warm water trying not to cry.
When she finished the bath, and came out, she put her panties on, and her bra, and sat on her bed. He was watching the television. She regarded him, where he lay, relaxed, watching the television.
She stood and pulled on her skirt. “We ought to get back soon.”
“It hasn’t even been an hour, has it? Let’s watch a movie or something and then make love again.”
She joined him, and he put his arm around her. She was nestled there, one hand on his bare chest, her fingers lightly playing with the hair. A sadness coursed through her, so fierce that she nearly sobbed. He breathed, and kept flicking through the choices on the television, and at last he settled on an old Alec Guinness/Stanley Holloway film about a pair of amiable gold thieves. She held on, kissed his shoulder, and they watched. Near the end, as the inevitable failure happened and the likable thieves were caught, she experienced a loathing for all the authorities and the net of laws that had caught them. Tyler fell asleep.
Hello to the Cannibals Page 57
