by Irwin Shaw
“They’re not packed,” Lucy said.
“I told you in the telegram,” Oliver said, a little of the old domestic irritation at her inefficiency creeping into his voice, “to be ready at three o’clock. I don’t want to drive the whole way in the dark.”
“I can’t go home,” Lucy said. “Didn’t you get my letter?”
“I got it,” said Oliver impatiently. “You said there were a lot of things to be cleared up between us. Well, we can clear them up just as well in our own house as here. I don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary. Go in and pack your things, Lucy.”
“It’s not as easy as that,” Lucy said.
Oliver sighed. “Lucy,” he said, “I’ve thought it all over. And I’ve decided to forget what happened this summer.”
“Oh, you have,” said Lucy, her voice curiously hard.
“I’ll accept your promise that it’ll never happen again,” Oliver said.
“Oh, you will,” said Lucy, the hardness now becoming metallic and toneless. “You’ll believe me if I say that?”
“Yes.”
“Two weeks ago you wouldn’t believe a word I said.”
“Because you were lying,” said Oliver.
“How do you know that I won’t lie again?” Lucy asked.
Oliver sat down, the lines of fatigue bitten into his face, his head nodding over his chest. “Don’t torture me, Lucy,” he said.
“Answer me,” she said harshly. “How do you know I won’t lie to you again?”
“Because I have to believe you,” Oliver said, his voice almost inaudible. “I sat in the house, thinking of what it would be like to try to live the rest of my life without you … and I couldn’t stand it,” he said simply. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Even though I’m a liar and you hate liars,” Lucy said, standing over him. “Even though I disgust you?”
“I’m trying to forget I ever said those things,” Oliver said.
“I can’t forget it,” Lucy said. “You were right. It was disgusting. I disgusted myself.”
Oliver raised his head and looked at her. “But you’ll change now?”
“Change?” said Lucy. “Yes, I will. But perhaps not in the way you think.”
“Lucy,” Oliver asked, and that was the first time he’d ever asked the question, “don’t you love me?”
Lucy stared at him thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said slowly, “yes, I do. I’ve been thinking myself these last ten days, about you. About how much I owe you. How much I need you. How much you’ve done for me. How solid you’ve been. How secure.”
“Lucy,” Oliver said, “it’s so good to hear that.”
“Wait,” said Lucy. “Not so fast. You’ve done something else too, Oliver. You’ve educated me. You’ve converted me.”
“Converted you?” Oliver asked, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“You always talked so much about your principles,” said Lucy. “About the truth. About seeing things clearly, about not fooling yourself. You even wrote a long letter to Tony about it this summer, when you were worried about his eyes.”
“Yes, I did,” said Oliver. “What about it?”
“I am now your disciple,” said Lucy. “And I’m the worst kind of disciple. Because the first person I’ve used my faith on is you.”
“What are you talking about?” Oliver asked.
“Lies offend you, don’t they, Oliver?” Lucy was speaking calmly, reasonably, as though she were explaining a mathematical equation.
“Yes, they do,” said Oliver, but he sounded wary and defensive.
“Deception of any kind, by anyone,” Lucy went on, in the classroom tone, “is sickening to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” said Oliver.
“You believe that, don’t you?” Lucy asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’re lying,” said Lucy.
Oliver’s head jerked back angrily. “Don’t say that.”
“You’re lying to me,” said Lucy. “But most of all to yourself.”
“I don’t lie,” Oliver said tightly.
“Should I prove it to you?” Lucy said, still friendly and impersonal. “Should I prove to you that a good part of your life is based on lies?”
“You can’t,” said Oliver. “Because it isn’t true.”
“No? Let’s forget us for the moment,” said Lucy. “Who’s your best friend?”
“What are you driving at?” Oliver asked.
“Sam,” Lucy said. “The good Dr. Patterson. You’ve known him for twenty years. He. and his wife are in and out of our house every week. You play golf with him. You’ve lent him money. You confide in him. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve even told him about this … this trouble between you and me.”
“It happens that I did,” Oliver said. “I had to talk to someone. He’s not only my friend. He’s yours, too. He advised me to come back to you.”
Lucy nodded. “My friend,” she said. “And your friend. And what do you know about our friend, Dr. Patterson?”
“He’s intelligent and loyal,” said Oliver. “He’s a damn good doctor, too. He pulled Tony through.”
Lucy nodded again. “All true. But you know several other things about him too, don’t you? About him and other women, for example?”
“Well,” said Oliver, “it’s always hard to be sure.”
“Now you’re lying again, Oliver,” Lucy said gently. “You see what I mean? You know about him and Mrs. Wales. You know about him and Evelyn Mueller. You know about him and Charlotte Stevens, because it started in our house two years ago and people have been talking about it right at our own dinner table ever since.”
“All right.” Oliver was cornered. “So I know.”
“And now I’m going to tell you something else,” Lucy said mildly. “He’s tried with me, too. Because that’s the kind of man he is. Because he can’t see a woman more than twice without making the effort. You must have known that, too.”
“I refuse to believe it,” Oliver said.
“Of course you do. And you went to his house a hundred times and invited him to ours. And all the others. The wives and husbands. The attached, the divorced, the dissatisfied, the curious, the loose … you knew about them all. And you were polite to them and friendly to them and laughed, the way all our friends do, when the talk turned that way, or when there was a scandal in the newspaper. But when it struck home you didn’t laugh. All that tolerance, all that civilization, all that humor, it turned out, was not for use at home.”
“Stop it,” Oliver said.
But Lucy went on, inexorably. “I’ve been thinking about all this, Oliver, for the last ten days, and I’ve decided you were right. At least what you said was right, even if you didn’t live up to it.”
“We’ll live any way you want,” said Oliver. “We’ll stop seeing anyone you say. We’ll start with a whole new group of friends.”
“I didn’t say that,” Lucy said. “I like our friends. Part of the reason for my feeling that I’ve been happy for so long has been because of them. I’d hate not to see them any more.”
Oliver stood up, his face flushed. “What in the name of God do you want, then?” he shouted.
“I want to live,” Lucy said quietly, “so that no one will ever be able to say liar again to me. So that I’ll never be able to say liar to myself.”
“Good,” Oliver said hoarsely. “If you mean that, I’m glad all this happened.”
“Not so fast,” Lucy said. “As usual, you’re in a hurry to settle for half the truth. The pretty half. The half that you can believe in publicly. The attractive half. The half that makes you feel noble and self-satisfied. But the private half—the secret, unpleasant, harmful half—that exists, too, Oliver. From now on you’re going to have to take them both together …”
“If you want to confess about anyone else,” Oliver said, “about any other college boys, or doctors, or dinner guests, or people on a train—spare me. I’m not interested
in your past. I don’t want to hear about it.”
“I don’t want to confess the past, Oliver,” said Lucy softly, “because there’s nothing there.”
“Then what?” Oliver asked.
“I want to confess the future,” said Lucy.
Oliver stared at her, baffled, angry. “Are you threatening me?” he asked.
“No,” said Lucy. “I just want to make sure that if ever I go into our house again I come in clean. If I finally come home, we start a new marriage and I want that understood.”
“Nobody starts a new marriage after fifteen years,” said Oliver.
“No.” Lucy nodded agreeably. “Perhaps not. Well then, a different marriage. Up to now you’ve treated me as though I’ve been the same girl you met so many years ago. As though I’m still twenty, to be cuddled, protected, patronized. Finally, in any important matter, disregarded. And until now I’ve always accepted it because …” She shrugged. “Who knows why I’ve accepted it? Because I was lazy. Because it was easier. Because I was afraid to anger you. But now … now you’ve been so angry that there’s nothing more to fear. The marriage has been broken. Maybe it will be put together again and maybe it won’t. Whatever happens I see that I’ll survive it. So—now—I no longer accept you.”
“What does that mean?” Oliver asked.
“When I agree with you, good,” said Lucy. “I accept you. When I don’t—I go my own way.”
“This is the damnedest thing,” Oliver said. “You behave like a slut …”
Lucy raised her hand warningly. “You mustn’t use words like that, Oliver.”
“Whatever you call it. You commit the crime, the transgression … God, what’s the polite word for it? And somehow you’re the one who’s laying down the terms.”
“Yes, Oliver,” said Lucy. “Because your terms don’t work any more. I’ve been trying to figure out these last ten days why I did what I did, after so long …”
“Why?” Oliver demanded.
“You’re not going to like this, Oliver,” Lucy said warningly.
“Get it over with,” Oliver said bitterly. “Get all the poison out this afternoon and we can start forgetting it on the trip home.”
“We can’t forget it,” said Lucy. “Not you and not me. In many ways you were a good husband. You were generous to me. I was warm in winter and well fed and you remembered my birthday and you gave me a handsome son whom I used to love a great deal …”
“What now?” asked Oliver sharply. “What are you going to tell me now?”
“You treated me as a child so long,” said Lucy slowly, “that the times when you suddenly had to treat me as a woman, when you made love to me, I had a child’s reaction. Bored, embarrassed, incomplete, disgusted.”
“You’re lying,” Oliver said.
“I told you I was never going to let anybody say that to me again,” said Lucy.
“But you always seemed …”
“Most of the time it was a performance, Oliver,” said Lucy gently. “Not always—but most of the time.”
“For so many years?” Oliver asked dully, disbelievingly.
“Yes.”
“Why? Why did you do it?” Oliver asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t think you could bear it,” said Lucy, “if I did.”
“And now?”
“And now,” said Lucy, “I’m more interested in myself than in you, I guess. That’s what you did to me that evening ten days ago, Oliver.”
“I’m not going to listen to you!” Oliver was raging now. “For five thousand years women have been excusing whatever cheap excursions they’ve made by wailing that their husbands were too old or too preoccupied or too inadequate to satisfy them. Do me the honor of thinking of something original.”
“Don’t think,” said Lucy, “that I’m trying to throw all the blame on you. Maybe if you’d been different, if we’d been different together, it wouldn’t have happened. Nothing would have happened. But,” she explained honestly, “it wasn’t only that. I wanted him. For a long time I wouldn’t even admit it to myself. But after it was over I was sorry I’d been so foolish and waited so long.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Oliver asked. “Are you going to see him again?”
“Oh, no,” said Lucy lightly. “He has his own … inadequacies. He’s too young. He’ll be inconsequential for another ten years. He served a useful purpose but it’s back to school for the children now.”
“A useful purpose,” Oliver said sardonically.
“Yes,” said Lucy. “He made me feel what a delightful thing it was to be a woman again. He was nothing—but at the age of thirty-five he made me see what pleasure was to be found in men.”
“That’s a whore’s philosophy,” Oliver said.
“Is it?” Lucy shrugged. “I don’t think so and I don’t believe you think so. Whatever it is, that’s the way I feel and you might as well know it.”
“What are you trying to tell me?” Oliver asked.
“I’m trying to tell you that it’s probably going to happen again.”
“You don’t mean it. You’re just saying it. You’re revenging yourself on me.”
“I mean it,” Lucy said.
“We’ll see,” Oliver said desperately. “We’ll see.”
“We won’t see,” said Lucy. “Why are you so shocked? You’ve been in locker rooms, bars, smoking rooms. Isn’t that what all the conversation amounts to? And if you could listen in on ladies’ luncheons and teas … The only difference is that after fifteen years my husband has made me tell the truth about myself and to myself.”
“No marriage can last like that, Lucy,” said Oliver.
“Maybe not,” Lucy said. “That would be too bad.”
“You’ll wind up as a lonely, forgotten old woman.”
“Maybe,” said Lucy. “But at the moment I think it will be worth it.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Oliver. “You’re so changed. You’re not the same person you were even two weeks ago.”
“You’re right. I am changed,” said Lucy. “Not for the better. Honestly, I believe that. Much for the worse. But it’s me now. It’s not a reflection of you. It’s not one unimportant, timid, pale, predictable fifth of your life. It’s me, uncovered. My own owner. My own self.”
“All right,” Oliver said sharply. “Go in and pack and let’s go home. I’ll get hold of Tony and tell him to get ready.”
Lucy sighed. Then, surprisingly, she laughed. “Oliver, darling,” she said, “you’re so in the habit of not listening to anything I say that I could tell you your clothes were on fire and you wouldn’t catch on until they’d burned right off …”
“Now, what do you mean by that?”
Lucy spoke very seriously. “I wrote you I wasn’t going home with Tony. Didn’t you read my letter?”
Oliver made an impatient gesture. “I read it. I read it,” he said. “It’s absurd. You obviously were in a state of nerves when you wrote it and …”
“Oliver,” Lucy said warningly.
“Anyway,” Oliver said, “it’s only for a few days. He’ll be going to school by the end of the month and then you’ll get a chance to calm down. You won’t see him again until Thanksgiving and …”
“I’m not going to see him for a few days,” Lucy said. “And I’m not going to see him at Thanksgiving. And I’m not going to see him at Christmas. And I’m not …”
“Lucy, stop that damned chant,” Oliver said harshly. “And don’t be a fool …”
Lucy closed her eyes wearily and waved her hand gently, dismissingly. “Why don’t you go home, the both of you,” she said, “and leave me alone?”
“I thought we settled that,” Oliver said.
“We haven’t settled anything. You said you wanted me back, and I said I wanted to come back. On certain conditions. One of the conditions is that I don’t have anything more to do with Tony.”
“For how long?” Oliver asked hoarse
ly.
“Forever.”
“That’s melodrama,” Oliver said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Now listen carefully,” Lucy said, standing directly in front of Oliver, controlling her voice with effort. “I mean every word I’ve said and every word I’m going to say. He hates me. He’s my enemy …”
“A thirteen-year-old boy …”
“He’s the witness against me,” Lucy said, “and he’ll never forget it, and neither will I. Every time he looks at me, he’s looking through that window that rainy afternoon. He looks at me and he’s judging me, prosecuting me, condemning me …”
“Don’t be hysterical, Lucy.” Oliver caught her hands, soothingly. “He’ll forget.”
“He won’t forget. Ask him. Ask him yourself. I can’t live in the same house with my judge like that! I can’t be made to feel guilty twenty times a day!” Her voice was shaken now and she was close to sobbing.
“You must try,” Oliver said.
“I have tried,” Lucy whispered. “I did everything I could to heal us. Even when I wrote you that I couldn’t come back with him, I still hoped … I didn’t really believe it, even while I was writing it. Then, this afternoon, he did this …” She pulled her hands away and pointed to the broken phonograph. “With a baseball bat. But it wasn’t a machine he was destroying. It was me. He was murdering me!” She was shouting crazily now. “Murder!”
Oliver seized her and shook her, sharply. “Stop that! Control yourself!”
Sobbing, not trying to free herself, she said, “He’ll poison everything. What’ll we turn out to be after five years like that? What sort of man will he be at the end of it?”
Oliver dropped his hands. They stood next to each other for a moment, without moving. Then Oliver shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he said.
Lucy took in her breath in a long sigh. She bent her head and absently put her hands across her breast to her shoulders, stroking the spots where Oliver’s hand had gripped her. When she spoke her voice was flat. “Then leave me alone. Take him away with you and leave me alone. For good.”
“I can’t do that, either,” Oliver said.
In the same flat and toneless voice, still touching her shoulders gently, Lucy said, “You’ll have to do one or the other, Oliver.”
