Truth and Consequences

by Alison Lurie

  “Oh, Jane. I’m so exhausted,” she said, shutting the door. At lunch Delia had looked pale and tense; now she seemed almost ill. An unkind smear of winter light from a gap in the curtains lit her face, exposing bruised violet hollows around the huge gray watery eyes and crepey skin beneath them, roughened rouged cheeks, and a sag of flesh under the chin. Why, she’s old, Jane thought. Bill was right; she’s much older than she told us: over fifty maybe.

  “And I’m cold all the time,” Delia moaned. “So cold.” She shivered and clutched a slate-gray fringed pashmina shawl more closely around her shoulders. “I think I must be coming down with something.”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Jane repeated, this time sincerely,

  “No, I’m happy you’re here. It’s my appointment book: it was right there on my desk, and now it’s vanished. It’s black, with a scarlet pimpernel on the cover—for assignations, you know—and my whole future is in there.” Her voice rose to a soft wail. “I can’t go on without it. Please. My head hurts so—and my eyes. Maybe you can see it somewhere.”

  She’s old and ill, Jane thought, old and ill and frightened; Henry doesn’t love her; he loves me. She felt a tremor of compassion. “Well, okay. I’ll try,” she said. She went to the desk and began to turn over drifts of paper. Many of them, she noticed, were sheets of the expensive heavy lime-green poster stock that Delia kept taking from the supply cupboard, with only a line or two scrawled on each one.

  “Maybe it fell off the desk,” she suggested, but Delia only looked at her hopelessly. Sighing, Jane dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under the big oak desk, where the wastebasket had been overturned and the oriental carpet was littered with scrap paper. She crawled closer and began shuffling through the debris.

  “Wait—is this it?” She held up a small notebook.

  “Oh yes! Oh, thank you, thank you.” Delia snatched the book, giving Jane a wonderful smile.

  “You’re welcome,” Jane said, backing out awkwardly, smiling too. She remembered something Henry had said, that we always feel kinder toward people after we have helped them. But maybe that could work both ways.

  “Well, now you’ve got to help me,” she said, standing up. “I have to write to the dean and the Humanities Council today, and I need an official letter of resignation from you.”

  “A letter?” Delia put one hand on her forehead, as if a migraine were churning there under the tangled golden tendrils. “I don’t understand. I’m not resigning, it’s just the cold here, the darkness, it’s making me so horribly ill—”

  “Susie says you told her you were leaving town tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I am, I must. But as soon as I’m better—at least, I hope so—Lily says January can be very beautiful here, with radiant sunny days, and the snow gleaming like sugar frosting.”

  “Yes, it can,” Jane admitted. Lily Unger put you up to this just now, she thought. She suggested that if you go on leave, instead of resigning, your paychecks and health insurance will continue. That’s what you were thanking her for.

  “And the spring, too. She says that in April the hill below the University is covered with golden flowering sythia trees.”

  “Forsythia,” Jane corrected. “It’s a bush.” Delia’s not going forever, she thought. She’ll be back, and Henry will come with her, and I’ll see him again. A surge of joy washed over her.

  “Oh yes? I should like to see that, so much.”

  “Well. In that case, we’ll need a request for a medical leave of absence. I’ll get Susie to type up a letter for you to sign.”

  “Oh, but I can’t do that. I’m not ill, really—it’s just that I can’t work here. It’s the chill, the darkness. The town is so ugly now, and so full of ugly boring people. . . .” Delia gazed at Jane, her eyes wide with appeal.

  And I’m one of them, Jane thought. She hardened her heart. “That’s up to you, of course,” she said. “But if you’re not in residence, and there’s no medical leave form on file, the accounting office in Knight Hall will stop processing your paychecks.” This statement was probably a lie: the payroll office would not stop Delia’s checks unless they were told to do so. But when you deal with immoral people, you become immoral. You touch pitch and are defiled, as the Reverend Bobby had said just last Sunday.

  “They are so petty?” Delia asked, pouting.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “Very well.” A long, sad sigh. “Wait, don’t go. I want to speak to you. About Alan.”

  “Yes?” Jane stopped with one hand on the new bolt of the door. She’s going to admit what really happened, she’s going to say she’s sorry, she thought, feeling ashamed of her recent spiteful thoughts.

  “You must know—you must realize that Alan has great talent—even genius,” Delia insisted, coming closer and putting one soft hand on Jane’s arm. “He’s going to have a great success with his art. But the more original something is, the longer it takes for it to be fully recognized. Some stupid people will never understand. They’ll say cruel things.”

  “Yes, so I’ve heard,” Jane said flatly, wondering if Alan had repeated to Delia some of the things she had said about his art. But they weren’t cruel, she told herself, just uncomprehending, and anyhow Alan had promised her not to talk to Delia again.

  “So it is important that when I’m gone he has someone he can depend on to support him and encourage him. That’s what you need to do, even if you don’t understand his work.” Delia moved nearer, so close that Jane could see the bruised violet skin around her eyes, and her thick mascaraed lashes.

  She thinks I’m one of the stupid people, Jane realized. “Naturally I support Alan,” she said, becoming indignant. “He’s my husband.”

  “No, I don’t think you do. That’s why I’ve had to help and comfort him. But I’m leaving tomorrow, and then it will all be over.”

  What it, what all? Jane thought, angry and confused. “You mean it’s not over now?” she said. “But Alan promised, weeks ago—”

  Delia sighed. “Yes, I know,” she said. “But men are so weak, don’t you agree? It’s hard for them to follow through on their promises. And how could I refuse, when he needed my encouragement and affection so desperately?” She had taken hold of the doorknob; now she pulled it open and began to push Jane out. “So you must forgive him, and stay with him and be kind to him,” she murmured.

  “Don’t you tell me what to do!” Jane cried in a furious whisper. But she said it to the closed door; the only response was the sound of the bolt being shoved home. Her heart was pounding, and she was trembling with rage at Delia, and at Alan, who had continued to mess around with Delia—unless she was lying, out of spite. But no: there were the voices behind her door so many afternoons, and his coolness at home. It was Alan who was lying, and had been lying all along, for weeks and months. How could Delia dare to ask her to forgive him? How could she think she could work her phony charm on Jane? How could she not know that Jane would naturally want to do the opposite of what Delia told her to do?

  She tried to gather her thoughts, to concentrate on practical matters, but her head was full of confusion. Delia wasn’t resigning, so there was no need to write to the dean, and the letters to the council could wait until next week. The only person she needed to speak to today was Bill.

  Back in the office, Susie was still typing and eating crackers, and Selma was addressing cartons, as if only a few minutes had passed since she went upstairs. And in fact, that was so, Jane realized. She took two deep breaths, lifted the phone off its cradle, and called Bill’s number.

  As always, he was calm, even amused. “Well, yes, it was interfering of Lily to talk to Delia about a medical leave,” he said. “But you know how Delia is, she gets people to do things for her by looking helpless.”

  “Yes, I know,” Jane said, catching her breath. I felt sorry for her, she thought, and so somehow she got me to crawl under her desk and dig through her dirty trash. “What I don’t understand is how she does it.”


  “I guess she sort of casts a glamour over them, like the gypsies in the old ballad,” Bill said, laughing. “But you know, it will be a lot simpler for us if Delia doesn’t resign,” he added. “Less talk.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I know—you’re thinking about the new copier. But I expect we can find the money somewhere. . . . For instance we might rent out Delia’s office to some other department that needs space for the spring term. There’s often extra faculty at the Law School, for instance.”

  “We can’t rent Delia’s office; she’s going to be here next term,” Jane protested.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Bill laughed.

  “You think she and Henry won’t come back at all?” Jane said, her heart sinking.

  “I doubt it. Why should she, when she’ll be getting her checks anyhow? And then there’s her migraines, that the climate here is so bad for.”

  “Oh, hell,” she exclaimed, so sharply that Bill said:

  “Jane? What’s the matter?”

  “It’s just—” She tried to lower her voice. “I sort of can’t face it.” She took another deep breath. “I mean the rescheduling, and the conference we’ve set up for the spring, so many people coming because they think Delia will be here—”

  “Oh, you’ll manage, I’m sure of it,” Bill told her. “You always do. You’re a very good administrator. Well, call me if anything else comes up.”

  Still holding on to the cordless phone, Jane walked out into the hall. Her heart was still pounding. Everyone is lying to me, and telling me who I am and what I should do, she thought. Everyone except Henry. She moved down the hall to the entrance, gazing through the double doors into a brilliant landscape of graceful bare maple trees and gas-flame-blue sky and distant gold and lavender hills.

  No matter what Delia says, it’s not ugly here in Corinth, she thought, it’s beautiful; and nobody here is boring. I don’t have to do what people tell me or be who they tell me I am. And I deserve to be happy, just as much as Susie does. She lifted the phone and punched in Henry’s number.

  TWENTY

  It was a fine early June evening, with a soft salty breeze in the plumed pampas grass by the water, and the organic-food tycoon and art collector Franklin Bannerman was hosting a large drinks party on his Greenwich estate. The occasion, officially, was the completion of a brand-new ruined medieval tower on the shore, designed by the newly fashionable installation artist Alan Mackenzie. The tower itself was not actually ruined, though a few crenellations were missing from its battlements. But only a fragment of the adjoining walls remained—or, rather, had just been built—suggesting the ghostly presence of a much larger structure.

  The stonemason and the two architecture graduate students who had helped Alan in the construction were on the terrace mingling with the guests, drinking and scarfing up salmon pâté and creamed chicken in puff pastry. But Alan, tired of walking back and forth, waited beside the warm gray stones of the tower, leaning on his cane, while people in groups of two or more crossed the long velvety lawn to see the structure more closely and ask questions about it, some intelligent and some ridiculous. Those of the men tended to be practical or ribald (“Took you how long to put up this thing?” “Well, Frank finally got himself a really big prick.”). Those of the women were more often sentimental or domestic (“Oh, it’s lovely, it makes me feel as if I was in a fairy tale” “You ought to put some lights in here, so Frank could use it for parties”).

  Alan was beginning to think of returning to the terrace for another drink, but decided to give it a few more minutes. His back hurt, as usual, though the pain was somewhat blurred now by alcohol and codeine, and by a sense of professional triumph. Otherwise he felt and looked well: he had lost weight and picked up a tan from working on the tower, and he had a new expensive haircut and an even more expensive beige summer suit.

  The last six months had been strange and confused, marked by both gains and losses. His career was going well: several more big drawings had been sold at what he still thought of as inflated prices; and there were two more commissions in prospect, one definite. He had a show scheduled in October at Jacky Herbert’s gallery, and there had been short but gratifying pieces about his installations in the New York Times and the Corinth Courier. On the other hand, he had lost both his wife and his true love, Delia Delaney.

  When Delia left Corinth in December she had vanished almost completely, leaving no address or telephone number, only a PO box in Ashland, North Carolina. Alan had written to this box frequently, and received in reply only three warmly affectionate but very brief notes, the last one in March.

  Wild snowdrops in the sunlit woods today, a message of new life and hope.Winds whispering secrets, songbirds calling and mating in the pines. My pen is in my hand—you are in my thoughts always.

  Dilly

  Since then, silence. Of course, Delia had warned him; she had explained that in order to work again—to make contact with her spirits, as she put it—she would have to cut herself off from everyone for a while, even from the people who meant most to her—perhaps especially from them, she had murmured, with a meaningful glance at Alan. But she had refused even to guess how long she might be gone, or when he might see her again. “Darling, I can’t know that now—I can’t know anything.”

  Trying to reconcile himself to her temporary absence, Alan had frequently reminded himself of all Delia had given him already. It was because of her that he had a New York gallery and sales at New York prices. It was because of her that he had crawled out from under the heap of dirt and stones that his life had become, and dared to commit himself to art and to love. Delia had even persuaded him to see the clawing lizard in his back as not wholly evil. If he had remained free of it, he would also have remained merely a professor of architectural history, with an occasional hobby of building and drawing follies and ruins. She had changed his life—and he had hoped to change hers.

  All through December and January he thought of Delia, his Dilly, almost constantly, remembering her voice, her touch, her words so vividly that at first he sometimes forgot that she was gone. As he walked down the hall at the Unger Center he would often automatically glance into her room, and only then remember that she had left. Meanwhile, her freeloader husband, Henry Hull, was already back in Corinth, living in their rented house. From time to time Alan saw him hanging around the Center office. It was clear that Delia had no further use for him—yet Henry, apparently not realizing this, or hiding his true feelings, maintained a cheerful manner. A couple of times, when Jane wasn’t around, Alan had stopped to ask him how Delia was doing, and the answer was always the same: “Fine, far as I know.” His tone was offhand, but no doubt he was feeling uneasy and rejected, and with good reason. You’re on your way out, pal, Alan thought. Whether you know it or not.

  At home, Alan never mentioned Delia’s name; he tried to behave politely and pleasantly during this interim period. There was no point, after all, in making trouble for Jane before it had to be made. Then, one evening just before Christmas, his wife had declared that she wanted to move back into her parents’ house, after they left for their annual winter stay in an RV park in Tampa.

  The thing was, she told him, she did not think their marriage was working. Though he disliked the idea of his or any marriage as a malfunctioning appliance, Alan could not disagree; he knew that in effect Jane was right. They had been happy together once, but the person who had been happy with Jane and with whom she had been happy was someone else, someone healthier and more conventional—not an invalid and not an artist. Besides, when Delia returned it would be easier if he was living alone.

  This time Jane did not bring him a dinner wrapped in foil every day, but she arranged for their cleaning lady to come in three afternoons a week instead of one, to do the laundry, shopping, and errands, and leave a meal for Alan to warm up. Jane also provided him with the take-away menus of several local restaurants. Thanks to the checks that kept coming from the gallery, he could
easily afford the extra expense.

  He missed her, in a way, but it was also a relief that she was not there every evening serving his dinner and doing the dishes and then sitting alone in the living room switching channels on the TV and hoping that their marriage, that ill-functioning stove or fridge, would recover by itself, when he already knew it would not recover—that what was wrong with it was fatal.

  It was a hard, lonely winter. January and February were cold and gray, and Alan was often in pain or blurry from the effects of drugs with threatening names that sounded like diseases. Sometimes he was well enough to draw and paint, or make notes for his study of church architecture, which he had not quite abandoned. At other times he spent whole afternoons lying on the sofa in his office, trying to read a heavy book held awkwardly and painfully on his chest, or listening to tapes of classical music. Over and over again he kept telling himself that one day, after the snow melted, Delia would be there.

  Often he imagined this time: their meeting, their walks in the greening woods or in the Corinth Orchard; Dilly in his bed, or bedded among the falling apple blossoms. He even imagined the trouble-free end of his marriage, and of Delia’s, and a summer wedding at her cabin in the North Carolina mountains—or perhaps here in Corinth, in the ruined chapel he and his students had built—its stained-glass window of holy chickens now in place. He imagined Delia crowned with flowers whose names and meanings she would know, and their procession through the miniature triumphal arch that had been the first step toward his new career. He was pleased and encouraged when he received a formal request from Delia’s publisher asking for the right to use a reproduction of his drawing for Attic Window on the cover of her forthcoming book. It proved that, though she might be silent, Delia was indeed thinking of him.