Other People's Love Affairs

by D. Wystan Owen

  turned the candy floss in his hand. It was pink. He hadn’t thought he wanted a sweet, but now he took as large a bite as he could. It was sticky, and it vanished on the end of his tongue exactly as he had been told it would do.

  “Is it good, Tony?”

  He said that it was.

  On Mr. Avery’s neck drops of sweat could be seen. His hair

  was matted as the ticket man’s had been. He ran a finger along the inside of his collar.

  When the music began for the high-wire act, Mr. Avery turned

  and smiled again. He patted Tony twice on the knee.

  Beside him, Eugenia’s mother was frowning. In his mind he

  said a curse about her. She hadn’t been as kind as Eugenia had; it

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  OTHER PEOPLE’S LOVE AFFAIRS

  had been she who’d started the fuss. It was because of that that he forgave Mr. Avery, to show that everything was all right. Without

  speaking, he handed some candy to Eugenia, who took it and

  put it into her mouth. Her brother reached a hand over her lap,

  and Tony gave him a little bit, too. They were at the circus with

  only that woman. Nobody asked whether she was their mother.

  Nobody asked where their father had gone.

  Around seven, Beryl poured a small glass of sherry. At

  the table she ran a hand through her hair. For a man, there was Joe Avery, of course. She thought about that with mild distaste. He

  would not have the strength of Rutherford Townes, or the bawdy,

  lighthearted way with her after, but she knew that if she resigned herself to him, he’d resign himself in a similar way. This evening he might, or any time in the future. She had only to make up her

  mind. Such a thing wouldn’t offer either one of them joy, but the

  knowledge of its being to hand was a comfort: it made it so that

  solitude was something you chose.

  One afternoon, some eight or ten years ago, she had run into

  her sister in Glass. She’d stopped in for coffee and a bite after

  work and saw Pearl seated in a booth by the window, laughing

  with another one of her men. Her youth was like a fine silk or fur she might wear without any notion of what it had cost. For some

  moments, at first, she didn’t see Beryl; she was perfectly unaffected and calm. And for those moments Beryl loved her sister, more than

  ever before or after. She didn’t begrudge Pearl the fun she was having: being taken out, called late at night on the phone. Joe Avery was hopeless for Pearl in those days, buying flowers, stopping for

  At the Circus

  43

  tea unannounced—an old-fashioned courtship to which Pearl

  condescended—but just then any hopes of his seemed absurd.

  When she looked up and saw Beryl, Pearl said, “You must join

  us.”

  The young man she sat with was shiftless and thin. He turned

  an unlit cigarette in his fingers; from time to time he glanced at the window. Pearl said his name was Hubert, giving it a French

  pronunciation: Ooh-bear.

  “I really can’t stay very long,” Beryl said.

  “Rushing off, are you? A date, is it, Beryl?”

  Pearl laughed, and Beryl only smiled a bit, because in fact

  she was going to the Cavalry Inn. Such a strange child, Pearl—

  unimaginable—to be at once so naive and so tarty.

  “We’re half sisters,” she explained to Hubert.

  Later, Beryl had thought of that day—the man’s disinterested,

  indolent manner; the slant of his forehead; the flick of his eyes.

  She had looked for those things in the face of the boy but never

  found them; it might have been anyone else.

  When she was leaving, having had her coffee and food, Beryl

  heard Pearl say, “Poor old Sissy,” and laugh.

  The superiority, the pity one feels toward the dying: in her

  extreme youth, Pearl had felt these toward the world. You couldn’t be angry. Not really. Not, at least, so long as you had your own

  life. The trouble was how, in death, Pearl had made of Beryl pre-

  cisely what she’d assumed her to be.

  The floor, unswept, was mockingly there. The high spirits of

  the morning had sunk. She poured herself another small glass of

  the wine.

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  OTHER PEOPLE’S LOVE AFFAIRS

  Pride, too, made a strike against Avery: she didn’t want any

  more of Pearl’s leavings. You made your own way, as best as you

  could, hoarding memories like lost teeth or old gowns, a space

  saved inside for the person you’d been: unafraid, unrepentant in a bed by the sea, the body ecstatic, celebrating itself.

  In the car on the way home from the circus, Mr. Avery

  talked about what they had seen.

  “How do you think the man fit in that box?” he said. “Could

  you credit that, Tony?”

  Outside the window the sky had grown dark. Tony was feeling

  sick from his sweets and from the sausage roll he’d eaten after the circus. They didn’t speak about the fact that he’d cried, both feeling embarrassed about it.

  Along the side of the road there were lights in the distance:

  villages, maybe, or the edge of the sea. In the mirror you could

  tell where the big top had been, a glowing bit of sky surrounded

  by blackness. For a while Tony stopped paying attention, simply

  letting the texture of the night hurry past, the air from the win-

  dow, the hum of the road. In his ears, the carnival music played

  on. The long day presented itself, and he watched it unfold as if

  from afar. He was thinking of the clown with a handkerchief and

  a stick when he heard what Mr. Avery said: “If I could go back and be a child, I would. In a second. No question about it. I would.”

  The older man gripped the wheel and stared intently ahead,

  making small corrections when he drifted or turned.

  “Your mother was a lovely woman, you know. A girl, really.

  Hardly more than a girl. Have you ever wondered what she was like?”

  At the Circus

  45

  Tony’s heart began to feel low. Sometimes, without any warn-

  ing at all, the image of her would appear in his dreams. He had

  never been told how it was that she’d died, but in his vision she

  was drowned in the sea. He knew from pictures that she had fair

  hair and eyes, and it was that hair, suspended like gauze in the

  water, that always woke him with a shuddering start.

  “She had a sweet nature. Wonderfully so. Even though she

  didn’t want me to court her, she let me come and have a chat now

  and then. It never changed things, the troubles she had. I was

  never any different with her. Only think if she could look at us

  now. Only think. She might even be pleased.”

  Tony closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, his head near to

  Mr. Avery’s arm.

  By the time they reached home there was a chill in the air.

  Aunt Beryl had left the porch light on. She met them in the front

  room when they entered, the door not having been locked.

  “Did you boys have fun at the circus?”

  You could see at once that she was feeling suspicious. She

  examined Mr. Avery’s face.

  “We saw the trapeze and a man in a box,” Tony said, rushing

  into the house. “And I made friends with a boy and a girl, and I

  ate sweets and sausage and a Buddy Boy Biscuit.”

  He shouted when he told Aunt Beryl those things, wanting her

>   to feel he had liked them.

  “And come home with vim and vigor to spare,” she said. “Not

  planning on sleeping, I guess?”

  Mr. Avery still hadn’t said anything. He stood in the doorway,

  regarding his feet. At length, he said, “He’s a very good boy.”

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  OTHER PEOPLE’S LOVE AFFAIRS

  Tony paused by the door to the kitchen. The room smelled of

  ginger and woodsmoke and ash.

  “I wil go to sleep, Auntie Beryl,” he said. “I’m tired as a matter of fact.”

  He brushed his teeth and put on his pajamas himself. If he was

  good, she might let Mr. Avery stay. It might help his spirits to stay for a while.

  He could hear them in the living room while he dressed,

  talking, perhaps companionably. He heard the kettle go on, and

  that made him happy; he smiled as he climbed into bed. Again

  the men swung down on their ropes; again Eugenia’s voice said

  your dad. Hidden in his closet, in a small paper sack, were the last few sticky pieces of candy. Mr. Avery had found the sack

  in his car so that Tony could save a little to share. He would

  bring it to school Monday morning. Everyone would be jealous

  of him.

  As sleep overtook him, he heard a voice, faintly. “Goodnight,

  boyo,” it said. “That was grand.”

  Beryl stood on one side of the threshold; Joe Avery

  stood on the other. The glare from the porch light was harsh on

  his features, shadowed when moths flitted over the bulb.

  “It’s good of you, Joe,” she said. “Despite everything.”

  “Do you think he had a good time?”

  On the sofa, while he finished his tea, she had watched him,

  the teacup small in his hands. He was shaven and washed and not

  terribly drunk: he’d made that effort today. She was grateful for it, admiring even, but still she didn’t want him to stay.

  At the Circus

  47

  “Maybe you can fix yourself up,” she said now. “This dirt on

  your collar, these stains. Bring your wash over. I’ve got a machine.”

  Slowly, he made his way to the car, his bent and ponderous

  figure. At the driver’s side door, he paused to light a cigarette, exhaling the smoke in the air. It had been he who’d found Pearl’s

  body that day, draped loosely, at an angle, over the bedspread.

  At first he had thought it was only a dress, a mere twist of fabric, carelessly thrown.

  His headlights cast a pale glow on the drive; his tires noisily

  crunched over gravel. Loving the mother, he loved the son, too.

  It was natural to him that he should. A painful thing, calling him back to the past, but there was the restoration of something as

  well.

  In the house, Beryl stirred up the last of the embers. Her book

  had been locked away in a drawer.

  They were all three of them orphans. That thought occurred

  now, as it hadn’t before. Each one bereft of a different love in one common stroke of youthful caprice. Sharing that was something

  for her. It was something for Joe Avery, too. In their lives they had that much, at least. Later, for the boy, there would be other things, but for now you knew enough to take what there was.

  Virginia’s Birthday

  z z z

  Sunday nights along the boardwalk are slow: locals

  retired, weekenders gone. By midnight, the Blue

  Parrot has emptied. Tables lie unoccupied in front of

  the stage upon which May Valentine sings with the band. Where

  guests dined, candles flicker and die, a highball has here or there been abandoned. Above the piano, catching the light, turns the

  pale, bluish smoke from Ham’s cigarette. A number ends, “The

  Nearness of You,” and from his place, sitting at the rear of the

  club, Walter Chapman applauds, alone in the shadows.

  It is a painful evening for Walter. Every week Sunday evening

  is painful. The club is not open on Monday or Tuesday, and the

  Virginia’s Birthday

  49

  knowledge that he will not see May in that time makes it so. He

  watches her now, draped in a shimmering fabric like water: here

  pooling, here running over hipbone or breast. Her skin is deep

  brown, pearls iridescent beside it. He has loved her since the day in 1954 when she answered his first-ever call for auditions. “Stardust.”

  Another Hoagy Carmichael tune. Not thirty, already she sang with a wisdom; her references told of an itinerant past (London, Amsterdam, Montreal). Mr. Chapman is what she called him that day, and has

  continued to call him the better part of two decades since.

  The band starts again, “You Go to My Head.” The arrangement,

  like all their arrangements, is sparse. Once soft-textured and warm, May’s voice has begun to grow brittle of late. Sometimes, summoned for a bend or a pickup, it strains and then cracks like a bird’s hollow bone. Walter doesn’t mind. The fragility suits her. She always had a gift for turning a phrase as if it took all the strength in her body to do it. The suggestion was of privacy, solitude; you couldn’t help but fall in love when you heard it, and now, even knowing she does not love him back, it is a comfort and consolation to him. The band

  plays, Walter has caught himself thinking, with the frail, haunted beauty of a burned-out home: the rhythm section—discordant and

  lurching—like high ruined rafters and walls, through the cracks in which Posey’s trumpet emerges, a shaft of light, the mere suggestion of a note in his breath, and around which May’s voice has twisted

  itself, like the bright, tattered silk of a scarf—not undamaged but somehow, miraculously, spared—lifted on an updraft of fiery air.

  After the set, he finds her alone in her dressing room. He

  knocks, though he knows she will not be indecent. She never

  changes her clothes in the club.

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  OTHER PEOPLE’S LOVE AFFAIRS

  She regards herself in the mirror, not appraisingly but with

  resignation, with boredom. The pins have already been removed

  from her hair.

  “It was a good show. You sounded good, May.”

  “If only someone had been there to see it.” She pours a drink:

  gin, kept among her perfumes.

  “Sunday night,” Walter says. He watches her swallow. Her lips

  leave another red stain on the glass.

  “I’m glad you liked the show, Mr. Chapman.”

  She does not invite him to sit, does not offer to pour him a

  drink. When she speaks, she addresses his reflection in the mirror.

  She closes her eyes and with the pads of her fingers massages the

  skin about her temples and jaw.

  “Birthday’s coming up,” he says. “She excited?”

  “Virginia? I imagine she is.”

  Each year at the club there is a small celebration: gifts and a

  cake. The band plays something special.

  “Sweet sixteen.”

  “That’s right.” She plucks a stray hair from her brow. “Thursday.

  And every bit of it, too. Just last week she failed an exam. Algebra.

  Chemistry, maybe. It used to be she was top of the class.”

  “She’s a good girl,” he says. “She’ll do well on the next one.

  Seems no time ago she would come round the club.”

  May used to be apologetic about it, but he never minded

  the girl. He enjoyed bringing her soft drinks and pretzels, play-

  ing jacks or pinochle while her mother performed. He gave her

  crayons and pens to draw pictures with
, stamps that she pasted

  into a book.

  Virginia’s Birthday

  51

  “Doesn’t it?” May says now, abstracted. “I rather think it does

  seem a long time. Some days it feels like a million years.”

  May arrives home after two in the morning, hav-

  ing stayed for a drink with Al at the bar and then hitched a

  ride with him back to the city. Virginia is asleep on the sofa,

  the TV left on with the test pattern showing. She does not stir

  when the screen is shut off, as she didn’t either when May had

  to fuss with the door. May knows that Virginia takes drugs. The

  kids at school must have gotten her on to them. Pills, maybe:

  she hasn’t smelled drink or reefer. It worries her to think about

  that, and because it does she brings over a blanket. It is spring, but the nights are still cold, and the window in the bathroom

  doesn’t properly close. In the darkness, Virginia looks peaceful.

  May would like to sit for a while—a girl needs her mother, she

  knows—but it is so late, and she makes her way instead to the

  bedroom, from beneath the door of which there comes no trace

  of light.

  She undresses and slides herself under the covers. “Move over,

  old lady,” she almost says in a whisper, as if she’d forgotten that Agnes is gone.

  She runs a hand along the sheet where once a warm body slept.

  Agnes always took more than her share of the bed, but May never

  minded that very much. If she were here now, Agnes might reach

  out to touch her, she might pull her into a folded embrace.

  “Did you sing nice tonight?” May hears her say. Agnes used to

  ask her that every night.

  “Yes. We did ‘The Nearness of You.’”

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  OTHER PEOPLE’S LOVE AFFAIRS

  Sometimes she still finds traces of Agnes: small hairs in a comb,

  her scent in a scarf. After three months that is all that remains.

  Soon, she thinks, there will be nothing at all.

  “Of course, there was hardly a soul in the place.”

  They met in a tea shop. Outside was a hailstorm; Agnes had

  come seeking shelter. She was dressed far too lightly for winter,

  a trench coat over a thin cotton dress. The first woman May had

  seen with natural hair. It was cropped short. Her face was angular, stern, a strength in it that was somehow recalled in the extreme

  narrowness of her wrists and her hands. Later, May would wonder