by Jojo Moyes
If you do choose to return without your husband, I have to inform you that you will not be welcome to stay here.
Your loving mother
Alice had held off opening the letter, perhaps because she had known the words she was going to find within it. She felt her jaw tighten, then folded it carefully and placed it back in her bag, noting once more as she did so that her fingernails, once highly polished and filed, were now ragged or cut down to the quick, and some small part of her wondered, as she did daily, whether that was the reason he didn’t want to touch her?
“Okay,” said Margery, appearing at her shoulder. “I ordered two new girths and a saddle cloth from Crompton’s and I thought maybe this for Fred as a thank-you. Think he’ll like it?” She held up a dark green scarf. The department-store assistant, transfixed by Margery’s beaten-up leather hat and breeches (she couldn’t see the point in dressing up to come to Lexington, she had told Alice, as she’d only have to get changed again when she got back), had needed a second to remember to take it from her, ready to wrap in tissue. “We’ll have to hide it from Fred on the ride back.”
“Sure.”
Margery squinted at her. “Did you even look at it? . . . What’s going on, Alice?”
“Look at what? . . . Oh, Lord—Bennett. I have to find something for Bennett.” Alice’s hands flew to her face as she realized she no longer knew what her husband liked, let alone his collar size. She reached for a set of boxed handkerchiefs on the shelf, decorated with a sprig of holly. Were handkerchiefs too impersonal a gift for one’s husband? How intimate could a gift be when you hadn’t seen more than an inch of his bare skin for the best part of six weeks?
She startled as Margery took her arm, steering her toward a quiet part of the men’s department. “Alice, are you okay? ’Cause you got a face on you most days like blinked milk.”
“There are no complaints, are there?” Alice glanced down at the handkerchiefs. Would it be better if she had his initials embroidered on them? She tried to imagine Bennett opening them on Christmas morning. Somehow she couldn’t picture him smiling. She couldn’t imagine him smiling at anything she did any more. “Anyway,” she said, her tone defensive, “you’re a fine one to talk. You’ve barely said a word the last couple of days.”
Margery seemed a little taken aback, and gave a shake of her head. “Just . . . just had a little upset on one of my rounds.” She swallowed. “Rattled me a bit.”
Alice thought of Kathleen Bligh, the way that the young widow’s grief would cast a pall over her own day. “I understand. It’s a tougher job than you think, sometimes, isn’t it? Not really about delivering books at all. I’m sorry if I’ve been miserable. I’ll pull myself together.”
The truth was that the prospect of Christmas made Alice want to weep. The idea of sitting at that tense table, Mr. Van Cleve glowering across from her, Bennett silent and simmering at whatever she had supposedly done wrong now. The watchful Annie, who seemed to delight in the worsening atmosphere.
Derailed by this thought, it took Alice a minute to realize that Margery was regarding her closely.
“I’m not getting at you, Alice. I’m . . .” Margery shrugged, as if the words were unfamiliar to her. “I’m asking as a friend.”
A friend.
“You know me. Been content my whole life to be on my own. But this last few months? I’ve . . . well, I’ve grown to enjoy your company. I like your sense of humor. You treat people with kindness and respect. So I’d like to think we’re friends. All of us at the library, but you and I most of all. And you looking this sad every day is just about breaking my heart.”
If they had been anywhere else Alice might have smiled. It was quite an admission from Margery, after all. But something had closed over these last months, and she didn’t seem to feel things in the way she used to.
“You want to get a drink?” Margery said finally.
“You don’t drink.”
“Well, I won’t tell no one if you don’t.” She held out an arm, and after a moment, Alice took it, and they headed out of the department store toward the nearest bar.
* * *
• • •
Bennett and I . . .” Alice said, over the noise of the music and the two men yelling at each other in the corner “. . . we have nothing in common. We don’t understand each other. We don’t talk to each other. We don’t seem to make each other laugh, or long for each other, or count the hours when we’re apart—”
“Sounds like marriage from where I’m sitting,” Margery observed.
“And, of course, there is . . . the other thing.” Alice looked awkward even saying the words.
“Still? Well, now, that is a problem.” Margery recalled the comfort of Sven’s body wrapped around hers just that morning. She felt stupid now for how afraid she’d been, asking him to stay, trembling like one of Fred’s spooked Thoroughbreds. McCullough hadn’t shown up. Sounded like he had been so drunk he couldn’t hit the ground with his hat, Sven pointed out. He most likely wouldn’t even remember what he’d done.
“I read that book. The one you recommended.”
“You did?”
“But it . . . it only seemed to make things worse.” Alice threw her hands up. “Oh, what is there to say? I hate being married. I hate living in that house—I’m not sure which of us is more miserable. But he’s all I have. I’m not going to have a baby, which might have made everyone happier, because . . . Well, you know why. And I’m not even sure I want one because then I wouldn’t be able to ride out any more. Which is the only thing that brings me any happiness at all. So, I’m trapped.”
Margery frowned. “You’re not trapped.”
“Easy for you to say. You have a house. You know how to get by on your own.”
“You don’t have to play by their rules, Alice. You don’t have to play by anyone’s rules. Hell, if you wanted you could pack up today and head home to England.”
“I can’t.” Alice reached into her bag and pulled out the letter.
“Well, hello there, pretty ladies.”
A man in a wide-shouldered suit, his mustache slick with wax, his eyes wrinkling with practiced bonhomie, planted himself against the bar plumb between the two of them. “You looked so deep in conversation I almost didn’t want to disturb you. But then I thought, Henry boy, those pretty ladies look like they could do with a drink. And I could not forgive myself if I let you sit there thirsty. So what’ll it be, huh?”
He slid an arm around Alice’s shoulders, his eyes flickering over her chest.
“Let me guess your name, beautiful. It’s one of my skills. One of my many special skills. Mary Beth. You look pretty enough to be a Mary Beth. Am I right?”
Alice stuttered a no. Margery stared at the two short inches between his fingers and Alice’s breast, the proprietorial nature of his grip.
“No. That don’t do you justice. Laura. No, Loretta. I once knew a very beautiful girl called Loretta. That must be it.” He leaned in to Alice who turned her head, her smile uncertain as if she didn’t want to offend him. “You gonna tell me I’m right? I’m right, ain’t I?”
“Actually, I—”
“Henry, is it?” said Margery.
“Yes, it is. And you would be a . . . Let me guess!”
“Henry, can I tell you something?” Margery smiled sweetly.
“You can tell me anything, darling.” He raised an eyebrow, his smile knowing. “Anything you like.”
Margery leaned forward so that she was whispering in his ear. “The hand that’s in my pocket? It’s resting on my gun. And if you don’t take your hands off my friend here by the time I’m done talking, I’m going to close my fingers around the trigger and blow your oily head halfway across this bar.” She smiled sweetly, and then moved her lips closer to his ear. “And, Henry? I’m a real good shot . . .”
The man stum
bled over the feet of the stool she was sitting on. He didn’t say a word but walked briskly back to the other end of the bar, shooting glances behind him as he went.
“Oh, and it’s real kind of you, but we’re just fine for drinks!” Margery called, more loudly. “Thank you, though!”
“Whoa,” said Alice, adjusting her blouse as she watched him go. “What did you say to him?”
“Just that . . . kind as his offer was, I didn’t think it was gentlemanly to lay his hands on a lady without an invitation.”
“That’s a very good way of putting it,” said Alice. “I can never think of the right words to say when I need them.”
“Yeah. Well . . .” Margery took a slug of her drink “. . . I’ve had some practice lately.”
They sat for a moment and let the bar chatter rise and fall around them. Margery asked the bartender for another bourbon, then changed her mind and canceled it. “Go on,” she said. “With what you were saying.”
“Oh. Just that I can’t go home. That’s what the letter said. My parents don’t want me back.”
“What? But why? You’re their only daughter.”
“I don’t fit. I’ve always been something of an embarrassment to them. It’s like . . . I don’t know. How things look is more important to them than anything else. It’s like . . . it’s like we speak different languages. I honestly thought Bennett was the one person who just liked me as I was.” She sighed. “And now I’m trapped.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Henry was leaving, casting furious, anxious glances at them as he hauled at the door.
“I’m going to tell you one thing, Alice,” said Margery, as the door closed behind him. She took Alice’s arm and gripped it, uncharacteristically tightly. “There is always a way out of a situation. Might be ugly. Might leave you feeling like the earth has gone and shifted under your feet. But you are never trapped, Alice. You hear me? There is always a way around.”
* * *
• • •
I don’t believe it.”
“What?” Bennett was examining the creases in his new trousers. Mr. Van Cleve, who had been standing with his arms outstretched, being pinned for a new waistcoat, gestured abruptly toward the door, so that a pin caught him in his armpit and made him curse. “Goddamn it! Out there, Bennett!”
Bennett looked up and through the tailor’s shop window. To his astonishment, there was Alice, arm in arm with Margery O’Hare, walking out of Todd’s Bar, a spit and sawdust establishment that advertised “BUCKEYE BEER ON SALE HERE” on a rusty sign outside the door. They had their heads tilted together and were laughing fit to bust.
“O’Hare,” said Van Cleve, shaking his head.
“She said she wanted to do some shopping, Pop,” Bennett said wearily.
“Does that look like Christmas shopping to you? She’s being corrupted by the O’Hare girl! Didn’t I tell you she was made of the same stuff as her no-good daddy? Goodness knows what she’s encouraging Alice to get up to. Take the pins out, Arthur. We’ll fetch her home.”
“No,” said Bennett.
Van Cleve’s head swiveled. “What? Your wife’s been drinking in a goddamn honky-tonk! You have to start taking control of the situation, son!”
“Just leave her.”
“Has that girl ripped the damn balls off you?” Van Cleve bellowed into the silent shop.
Bennett flashed a look at the tailor, whose expression betrayed the kind of nothing that would be discussed feverishly among his colleagues afterward. “I’ll talk to her. Let’s just . . . go home.”
“That girl is causing chaos. You think it does this family’s standing any good for her to be dragging your wife into a low-life bar? She needs sorting out, and if you won’t do it, Bennett, I will.”
* * *
• • •
Alice lay on the daybed in the dressing room, staring up at the ceiling, as Annie prepared the evening meal downstairs. She had long since given up offering to help, as whatever she had done—peeling, chopping, frying—had been met with barely concealed disapproval, and she was weary of Annie’s sly comments.
Alice no longer cared that Annie knew she was sleeping in the dressing room and had no doubt told half of Baileyville, too. She no longer cared that it was obvious she still had her monthlies. What was the point in trying to pretend? Outside the library there were few people she cared about impressing anyway. She heard the sound of the men returning, the exuberant roar of Mr. Van Cleve’s Ford as it ground to a halt in the gravel drive, the slamming of the screen door that he plainly felt unable to close quietly, and she let out a quiet sigh. She closed her eyes for a moment. Then she raised herself, and walked into the bathroom ready to make herself look nice for the evening meal.
* * *
• • •
They were already seated when Alice came downstairs, the two men opposite each other at the dining table, their plates and cutlery laid neatly in front of them. Small bursts of steam escaped through the swinging door, and inside the kitchen Annie’s clattering pan lids suggested the imminence of food. Both men looked up as Alice entered the room, and the thought occurred to her that it might be because she had made a little extra effort: she was wearing the same dress she had worn when Bennett had proposed to her, her hair neatly brushed and pinned back. But their expressions were unfriendly.
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?” Her mind raced with all the things she might have got wrong today. Drinking in bars. Talking to strange men. Discussing the Married Love book with Margery O’Hare. Writing to her mother to ask if she might come home.
“Where is Miss Christina?”
She blinked. “Miss who?”
“Miss Christina!”
She looked at Bennett and back again at his father. “I—I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Mr. Van Cleve shook his head, as if she were mentally deficient. “Miss Christina. And Miss Evangeline. My wife’s dolls. Annie says they’re missing.”
Alice relaxed. She pulled out a seat, as nobody else was going to, and sat down at the table. “Oh. Those. I . . . took them.”
“What do you mean you ‘took’ them? Where’d you take them?”
“There are two sweet little girls on my rounds who lost their mother not long back. They didn’t have any gifts coming at Christmas and I knew that passing them on would make them happier than you can imagine.”
“Passing them on?” Van Cleve’s eyes bulged. “You gave away my dolls? To . . . hillbillies?”
Alice laid the napkin neatly on her lap. She glanced at Bennett, who was staring at his plate. “Only two. I didn’t think anyone would mind. They were just sitting there doing nothing and there are plenty of dolls left. I didn’t think you’d even notice, to be honest.” She tried to raise a smile. “You are grown men after all.”
“They were Dolores’s dolls! My darling Dolores! She’d had Miss Christina since she was a child!”
“Then I’m sorry. I really didn’t think it would matter.”
“What has gotten into you, Alice?”
Alice let her gaze fix on a point of the tablecloth just past her spoon. Her voice, when it emerged, was tight. “I was being charitable. Like you always tell me Mrs. Van Cleve was. What were you going to do with two dolls, Mr. Van Cleve? You’re a man. You don’t care about dolls any more than you care about half the trinkets in this place. They’re dead things! Meaningless!”
“They were heirlooms! They were for Bennett’s children!”
Her mouth opened before she could stop it. “Well, Bennett isn’t having any children, is he?”
She looked up and saw Annie in the doorway, her eyes wide with delight at this turn of events.
“What did you just say?”
“Bennett isn’t going to have any wretched children. Because . . . we are not involved in that wa
y.”
“If you’re not involved in that way, girl, it’s because of your disgusting notions.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Annie began to put the plates down. Her ears had gone quite pink.
Van Cleve leaned forward over the table, his jaw jutting. “Bennett told me.”
“Pa—” Bennett’s voice held a warning.
“Oh, yes. He’s told me about your filthy book and the depraved things you tried to do to him.”
Annie’s plate dropped in front of Alice with a clatter. She skittered back to the kitchen.
Alice blanched. She turned to look at Bennett. “You talked to your father about what goes on in our bed?”
Bennett rubbed at his cheek. “You . . . I didn’t know what to do, Alice. You . . . kinda shocked me.”
Mr. Van Cleve threw his chair back from the table and stomped round to where Alice was sitting. She flinched involuntarily as he towered over her, spraying saliva as he spoke. “Oh, yes, I know all about that book and your so-called library. You know that book has been banned in this country? That’s how degraded it is!”
“Yes, and I know that a federal judge overturned that same ban. I know just as much as you do, Mr. Van Cleve. I read the facts.”
“You are a snake! You have been corrupted by Margery O’Hare and now you are trying to corrupt my son!”
“I was trying to be a wife to him! And there’s more to being a wife than arranging dolls and stupid china birds!”
Annie peered around the doorway with the last plate, immobile.
“Don’t you dare criticize my Dolores’s precious things, you ungrateful wretch! You aren’t fit to touch the heel of that woman’s shoes! And tomorrow morning you’re going to go up those mountains and fetch my dolls back.”
“I will not. I’m not taking those dolls away from two motherless children.”
Van Cleve raised a stubby finger and jabbed it at her face. “Then you’re banned from that damned library from now on, you hear me?”
