Truth and Consequences

by Alison Lurie

  You are a bad influence on me, he thought now, looking at Delia as she lay flushed and disheveled on a black leather sofa on Central Park West. And I am a bad influence on you. And I don’t care.

  ELEVEN

  A few days later, on a misty October afternoon, Jane sat brooding in her office at the Unger Center. The Copy Monster was giving trouble again, the kitchen was full of noise and dust and confusion caused by the men from Buildings and Grounds who had finally come to replace the fallen ceiling, and Susie and the cleaning crew had done no typing or cleaning because they had spent the entire morning moving Delia Delaney into Alan’s office and Alan into Delia’s, without consulting Jane. “She told me it was all right; she said he’d agreed,” Susie had explained.

  At first Jane had suspected that Delia had made this up, but Alan (who was at home recovering from a semi-sleepless night) had confirmed it. No, he didn’t really mind, he said in a flat, neutral voice, after informing Jane that she had woken him up and that he was in severe pain. But Jane minded: though she tried not to show it, she was furious. Yet again Delia was grabbing whatever she wanted without considering anyone else—without considering the schedule of the Center or Alan’s need for peace and northern light.

  You are a hopeless ninny, she thought as she looked across the desk at Susie, and Delia is a greedy, selfish egotist. As an administrator it was Jane’s job to maintain a cool but friendly attitude toward all the Fellows; but over the past two months she had come to dislike and resent Delia thoroughly. Why should a woman like that not only get more than Jane’s yearly salary for sitting in an office for nine months and giving two lectures, but also be married to Henry Hull?

  Jane sighed and rested her head against the screen of her computer. She knew that these thoughts were deeply unprofessional; they were also morally wrong, because they were partly based on jealousy. Somehow over the last two months, in spite of all her efforts, she had not only become a resentful unloving wife but was on the edge of becoming an unfaithful one. Already the hot stains of Henry Hull’s kisses under the maple tree were on her face and neck, and one, the worst one, just above her left breast, over the heart. And last night, while she lay silently awake after a dream full of flying tropical birds, listening to Alan groan and shift about and pull the covers off her and toward him, she had faced the fact that she was in love with Henry Hull. It wasn’t just frustrated desire she felt: it was awe and wonder and a bright dizzy feeling of flying and floating whenever she thought of him.

  But what she felt was wrong and awful and disloyal. “I brought you the acorn squash, like I promised, but I can’t see you again,” she had told him at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday, as they stood in front of a display of misshapen organic pumpkins, like huge orange lopsided hearts. “Not like this.”

  “But you want to,” Henry had suggested.

  “Yes, but that doesn’t matter. It’s not right.”

  A wheeze of cool, foggy air from the hall announced that someone had entered the building. Jane sat up abruptly and composed her expression into one of helpful neutrality. Then she saw that the visitor was Henry, in the same tan duffle coat he had worn two days ago, a coat she now knew the warm, rough texture of intimately. She rose and hurried out into the hall to intercept him.

  “Please, I asked you not to come here,” she said in a lowered, trembling voice. “You said you wouldn’t.”

  “This is an official visit,” Henry replied. “Delia sent me. She’s concerned about the room she’ll be speaking in next week. She doesn’t think it will be big enough.”

  “I don’t see why,” Jane told him. “There’s over a hundred and fifty seats in Shaw Hall. It’s much larger than the room here where the other Fellows have spoken.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” Henry ran one hand through his untidy brown curls in an untidy manner. “But you know, Delia has a lot of fans. It won’t be just students. Whenever she reads anywhere lately, these mobs of intense-looking women appear. I think you’d better count on at least three hundred.”

  “Really,” Jane said. Already this reading had become an annoyance to her. The photo that Delia had given her for the publicity release and the poster was, in Jane’s opinion, on the edge of unsuitable. Delia’s abundant loose hair, low-cut lace blouse, and dreamy, sex-stunned expression suggested the cover of a paperback romance rather than a University lecture. To make matters worse, Selma Schmidt had taken it upon herself to make an extra hundred copies of the poster on hot-pink paper and tack them up all over town. Maybe this would attract a few more listeners; but it seemed very unlikely to Jane that there were three hundred people in Hopkins County who would want to hear Delia’s arty, self-conscious poems and tales.

  “I promised her you’d fix it.” Henry moved nearer to Jane; he touched her hand. She pulled it away, but the place still burnt. “Let’s keep her happy, it’s so much less trouble.”

  “I don’t know,” Jane temporized, reluctant to give Delia anything in addition to what she already had that she didn’t deserve. “It’s pretty late to find another room, but I’ll try.” Only not too hard, she thought.

  “And I’ll see you this Saturday at the Farmers’ Market? About ten?”

  “All right,” she repeated weakly, aware that in fact it was all wrong.

  “So how’s it going?” Henry asked, sitting down next to Jane in a noisy, crowded coffee shop. Outside it was steadily and heavily raining: the bench by the lake where they usually sat was soaked and dark with water.

  “Oh, all right.” As Jane lifted her cup she was aware that her hand was shaking. All week she had been dreading and desiring this meeting, dreading and desiring what Henry might do or say.

  “How’s Alan?”

  “So-so.” She tried to gather her thoughts. “He’s been very involved with making drawings for that show in New York. But then yesterday . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  Jane stared at Henry. How could he be so calm? she thought. It was as if he had taken a six-week step back in time, to a place where nobody felt anything much and all they did was complain politely about their spouses. Of course that was right; it was what they should do. With effort, she tried to take a similar step back. “Well, yesterday he was telling me how he hadn’t been able to finish his exercises because of the pain. And I made a mistake, I suggested he might try going for walks instead. Because his doctor said that he should lose some weight, to put less strain on his back. And he got irritated.”

  “Ah.”

  “He told me I ought to realize it wasn’t as easy as I thought to walk when you were in constant pain and every step you took hurt.” Jane spoke almost in a whisper, aware that the people at the tables on either side of them could hear every word.

  “Um.”

  “I said I was sorry, but he’s been difficult ever since, he—” Jane realized that Henry wasn’t looking at her or even listening to her, only staring out the plate-glass window, where rain streaked down in gray sheets. She felt something like despair. Always before he had sympathized, met her complaints with his own. “So how’s Delia?” she asked forlornly.

  “All right.” He swallowed visibly. “I don’t want to talk about her. I want to talk about us. But not here. Isn’t there somewhere quieter we can go?”

  “I don’t know. . . .”

  “What about the Center? Don’t you have a key?”

  “Yes, but so do all the Fellows. Charlie Amir often comes in on Saturday, and so does Selma Schmidt.”

  Henry laughed shortly. “So what? They aren’t going to report us.”

  “Selma might. She’s that type. And she’s always looking for some reason to talk to Delia.”

  “And Delia is always looking for some reason not to talk to her.” He set down his half-finished coffee. “Come on, Janey. I’ll meet you there.”

  “It’s beautiful up here,” Henry said. It was twenty minutes later, and he and Jane had just climbed the narrow, steep stairs to the Victorian cupola above the Unger Center. They had reje
cted all the other possible places to talk: the kitchen and dining room were still full of ladders and drop cloths and plaster dust; the main downstairs rooms were large and full of echoes, with sliding doors that hadn’t been fully closed in years. Charlie Amir was working upstairs, and he would think it strange if he saw them go into someone else’s office.

  “I know Alan isn’t here,” Jane had said. “But I keep thinking he could suddenly decide to come in, and call a taxi.”

  “And I keep thinking Delia could fly in the window on a broom,” Henry had remarked, surprising Jane. He never says anything negative about her, and now he’s just practically called her a witch, she thought.

  “I never knew you could get up into the cupola,” he said now, looking out over the tops of the maple trees, through which a few last pale-gold leaves shone, drenched now with rain and shaken with wind.

  “Most people don’t. But back in Matthew Unger’s time they used to have tea here and watch the storms coming across the lake, Lily told me.”

  “Yeah, you could do that.” He glanced at the padded seats on three sides of the cupola, with their faded, flowered cushions and the little wicker table in the center. “You can see a long way,” he added. “Or I guess you could if it wasn’t for the rain and the fog.”

  “Yes, for miles. But Lily Unger doesn’t like people to come up here. She says the stairs aren’t safe, and it’s too full of ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “Memories, I expect she meant.”

  “Yeah. A place like this could have that kind of ghosts.” Without warning, he turned from the window toward Jane and kissed her lightly, instantly creating one such ghost.

  “No-oh,” she whispered, and pulled away. “It isn’t—we mustn’t—”

  Henry did not protest. “You’re right. We have to talk first,” he said, sitting down. “Look, the way it is. I want to be with you, and you want to be with me.”

  “I never said—” Her voice trembled as she subsided onto a padded bench.

  “But it’s true, isn’t it?”

  Jane swallowed. It was one of her principles never to lie to a friend. “Yes, but it doesn’t make any difference,” she said hurriedly. “We can’t be together, because of Alan and Delia. We have to take care of them. We promised, we’re married.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “What?” Jane stared at Henry and the rain-smeared glass behind him.

  “Are you sure you’re married?”

  “Yes, of course. What do you mean?” He’s going to talk metaphorically, philosophically, the way some professors do, Jane thought with an irritated sinking feeling. He’s never done that before.

  “You never can be sure.” Henry looked at her with a strange steady expression in his dark eyes. “I thought I was married, but it turns out I was wrong.”

  “You’re not married to Delia?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Really? But how? Why?” Jane realized her mouth was hanging open, and shut it. “But that can’t be right,” she said. “Delia was telling everybody just last week about what a beautiful wedding you had, on a mountainside at sunset in a field of wildflowers, with a string quartet playing Schumann.”

  “Yeah. We had all that: the music, the flowers, the sunset, the champagne. Everyone said how perfect it was. But it turns out Delia had neglected to get a divorce from her former husband.”

  “She’d what? Good grief,” Jane, stunned, heard herself utter, in her mother’s voice, her mother’s favorite expletive. “Oh, hell,” she amended. “That’s awful.”

  “I thought so. But of course when I found out, she claimed it didn’t matter. She’d forgotten all about it, she said. He was the past, and it was gone, blown away. Anyhow our souls and our bodies and our minds were truly married, so who cared about the State of North Carolina? She more or less convinced me at the time. Delia can do that, she can convince anyone of anything. Except you.” Henry gave her a brief smile.

  “Wow.” Jane disregarded the compliment, if it was one. “How did you find out?”

  “I saw a letter from her husband’s lawyer yesterday. He wants a divorce now, so he can marry again.”

  “And will Delia agree?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I guess so, if he pays her enough money. He’s not a bad guy—teaches at some little college in Ohio.”

  “So then you could really get married,” Jane said without enthusiasm.

  Henry did not reply, only shrugged.

  “You wouldn’t have to have another big wedding. You could just go to the town hall right here.”

  “Delia wouldn’t do that. She’d never agree to get married in an office building. Not her style at all. And what if someone found out? It would ruin her legend.”

  “Really.” Jane looked at Henry. He doesn’t like her either, she thought, and felt a rush of joy. But that was wrong, and also pointless. “But if everyone thinks you’re married, you should be married,” she said. “Otherwise—”

  “Otherwise we’re living in sin, and we’ve been living in sin for seven years.” Henry laughed harshly. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Well, yes. At least, that’s how my mother would put it.”

  “So you think I should marry a woman who’s been lying to me for seven years.”

  “No—I don’t know,” Jane stuttered.

  “But I don’t want to get married,” he said. “Not to Delia, anyhow. And I don’t think she wants it either. I think it’s convenient for her to be free. And always has been.”

  “Convenient?” Jane said, shocked, then convinced. Well, of course Delia didn’t just forget she was already married, she thought. Nobody forgets something like that, no matter how poetic and flaky they are.

  “In case she should meet someone she liked better.”

  “But that’s awful—that’s—” Jane tried to find words.

  “Let’s not talk about her.” Henry moved toward her. “Let’s forget about all that for a while.” He put one arm about her, then the other. “We’re here now.”

  Yes, but where are we? Jane thought. On top of the Unger Center, in a place battered by wind and surrounded by rain and haunted by ghosts. Confused, she allowed Henry to move even closer. For a long moment she totally lost contact with her conscience. Then, as she felt the cold plate glass of the window against her back, she struggled upright.

  “No, no, I can’t, I mustn’t,” she cried with a stifled sob. “You might be free, but I’m not.”

  Henry scowled, but let her go. “Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to be free?” he asked.

  “But I can’t,” Jane wailed, staring past him at the rain-smeared glass, which made her feel as if the whole room were crying. “I can’t leave Alan, not when he’s so ill. Everyone would hate me. I would hate myself.”

  “What if he weren’t ill? Could you leave him then?”

  “I don’t know—yes, maybe. But if he weren’t ill, if he were the person he was before, I maybe wouldn’t want to—I mean—” Jane fell silent, aware that she had said something hurtful. “Or maybe I would, I can’t tell. I don’t know anything anymore.” She swallowed another sob. “Before I met you my life was so simple, and now it’s so complicated.”

  “And before I met you, my life was so complicated, and now it’s so simple,” Henry said, staring directly at her.

  Jane did not speak; all her effort was going into trying not to weep, to explode into a rush of water and wind like the one outside the cupola.

  “Tell me something,” Henry said presently. “Would you feel any different if you thought you weren’t the only person who could take care of Alan? For instance, if you thought he was having an affair?”

  “What?” Jane gulped down another sob, and gathered her strength to answer this absurd question. “I don’t know, probably, but he isn’t. He’s not interested in that, not now. Because of the pain, he can’t—he doesn’t—” She gave a kind of moan, realizing that she had just been deeply disloyal as well
as indiscreet. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that, I—” The sobs so long suppressed burst from her, followed by a rush of tears.

  “I thought so,” Henry said ambiguously. “Please, Janey, don’t cry.” He put his arms around her again, but lightly this time, and Jane rested her face against the familiar warm, rough tan fabric of his duffle coat. “No, I take that back. Cry if you want to. But it’s going to be all right. I promise you, it’s going to be all right.”

  No, it’s not, Jane thought. Nothing’s going to be all right. Not ever again.

  “I can’t see you anymore,” she said, choking back a sob. “It’s got to stop.”

  On Friday of the following week, Jane was in the supply room, frowning at the Copy Monster, which all day had been refusing to collate or staple. The campus technicians who repair copiers had grown tired of coming to the Unger Center, and when Jane phoned them they would not promise to be there until late next week. As a result, Jane and Susie had been collating and stapling by hand nearly all afternoon. Half an hour ago Susie had run one spike of a heavy-duty staple into her thumb and had to be sent first to the University Health Center and then home.

  But the Copy Monster was the least of Jane’s troubles today. Though she had refused to see Henry, trying to do the right thing and get things clear in her head, her thoughts had remained uncollated and full of sharp spikes.

  When Henry had said that everything would be all right, what he must have meant was that she would agree that they should be together. As he had pointed out, it was what she (or rather the selfish, greedy, bad part of her) wanted. If she gave in to it tomorrow afternoon they would be together, but in a dishonest, sneaky way, in some motel at least an hour from Corinth. Anywhere closer would be dangerous, because Jane, as a local, was known to people who owned or ran or worked in all the local motels. They would have to drive for at least an hour, to some cheap highway motel where they did not ask questions, probably somewhere with a sleazy fake-satin bedspread and plastic glasses wrapped in waxed paper and snow on the television screen. But they wouldn’t care about any of that, because they would be together.