by Cecelia Frey
Now he knew that all this time she must have been ruminating on a course of action. With her usual cunning she must have been planning today’s event. She must have been planning to smash his world so that he would agree to her world. Even if he did not, his life would be irrevocably changed. Well, she was correct in thinking that. His life was changed already. His life was destroyed. The old George Martin no longer existed. He would never again be Esther’s George, not in the old way. He would never again be George Martin, husband, father, staunch member of the university and the community, upholder of its values. His identity was shattered.
Veronica had timed it so that his moment of success had been taken from him. For, during the announcement, glasses raised high, during the toast, the polite restrained applause, fingers tapping lightly the heel of a hand, George had been distracted as might be a man who has just visited his physician and heard the pronouncement of his own doom. Through the sole meunière he had somehow managed to make polite conversation — someone had returned from a convention in Anaheim; hockey was into the playoffs. Black coffee had been ordered around and now George sat in a mental haze with his elbows up on the table, resting his chin on his thumbs, smiling and nodding at his colleagues sitting around the table with him.
What would they think? he asked himself. These men, his peers, how would they judge him? True, nowadays, such a thing would not be the scandal it once would have been. It had been rumoured, quite a while ago, that Henry, sitting directly across from him, was having an affair. The consensus seemed to be that Henry was a fool, that he was going through a mid-life crisis, that he would regain his senses, and that ever-faithful Mildred would take him back. The episode seemed to be viewed as a psychological lapse as well as an error in judgment but not as a sin or a betrayal of some moral code. These days, what shocked people in his circle was lack of intelligence and, also, what might be termed tacky behaviour. That he had gotten himself into this particular mess with a student and that now there was a child involved would be seen as tackiness of the highest order. It would also be denounced as blatant stupidity. Likely the committee, the faculty, the university, would not want to make a stupid man head of a new research lab. The appointment had been touch and go as it was. He had been worried about his book, that it was not forthcoming would be a mark against him. But, he supposed, they should all understand that sort of thing; most of them had had books held up at one time or another. He could not expect them to understand Veronica.
George very much wanted the position. There was money involved, of course, a raise in salary, a bonus, and there was the added prestige. It was a wise political move in terms of recognition and further advancement. But mainly it was the work. He would be back into research. It was the change he needed. Was he not to have it now, now that it was so close? The formal announcement had yet to be made. Was he not to have it because of … because of what? What had he done wrong that every man didn’t do at one time or another in his life? After all, he was not evil. He had made a regrettable error in good sense. Now he had to clean up the mess, face the music, face Esther, ultimately face Veronica. At this very moment, Veronica’s telephone number was waiting for him in his office mail box. Her call must have come about the same time as Esther’s.
George groaned inwardly at his predicament. How could he be expected to deal with both women in one day? What could Veronica want? Reassurance for her action? That wouldn’t be like Veronica. Her method was damn the torpedoes. And she never apologized, not even if she blew up the wrong ship. Nor would she concern herself with whether or not there were survivors. Veronica would be all right. It was Esther he was concerned about. She was not tough like Veronica. She had lived a protected life. He must think of Esther. How would he face Esther? He could not conceive of life without Esther, life without her stability, without the routine of her. His career and home life were so intertwined, it was all part of the same package. Esther was connected with the university. Their lives had revolved around this institution. They had met here, courted here. How many staff functions, wine and cheese parties, weddings and, yes, funerals, had they attended over the years? He had given so much of his life to the university. His teaching and research, of course, but how many committees had he sat on and chaired, how many conventions had he attended, how many weekend seminars had he helped coordinate, how many fund-raising functions had he been involved in, how many studies and proposals to the government? Now, when he had been offered an opportunity to head a new multi-million dollar research lab, a position that would give him everything he had ever wanted, he would not be able to have it. For even though people took a different view of such things nowadays, if the committee had known the details of his private life, he would not have received this offer. He felt sure of that. His colleagues would tolerate his problem in a superficial way, but at some deeper level, he would lose their esteem. And in the political arena of government and industry funding, the university could not afford to take chances. He was, quite simply, ruined.
George looked toward the large windows. Even the day was turning on him. The sun had been replaced by grey clouds scudding in on a wind coming across the river from the north. Rain pellets intermittently struck the glass.
I always thought I could quit any time I wanted to, thought George. When had he passed some invisible point of no return? Is that when he should have told Esther? But, by then it was too late. Then it would have hurt her so. There was a difference between a husband having a casual affair and his being obsessed with another woman. He had not wanted to be unkind to either of them. And there you were. You try not to hurt people and this is what you get. A complete muddle, turning on you. Everyone upset with you!
Veronica was the one who had caused the disaster. He should be upset with her! He was the one who must bear the brunt of her rash action. He was the one who must now face Esther, face inquisition, blame and recrimination, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. He was the one who must face female hysterics. No, hysterics were not Esther’s style. More likely, she’d get all weepy and play the martyr, which, in some ways, was harder to deal with, slow and steady punishment rather than a good blast and get it over with. He wondered if she’d kick him out, in a nice way, of course. At a time when he should be looking forward to his twilight years in the comfort of his home, a home he had worked hard to establish, at a time when most men were looking forward to a cozy fire and slippers and books, he would be lying on a rented mattress in a dark room subsisting on TV dinners. When he got through support payments to both women, he would not be able to afford anything better than one of those dingy student rooms the like of which Veronica was in now.
Maybe that was what he deserved. How could he have been such a heel? How could he have deceived Esther? Esther who was the mother of his child, who unfailingly put his needs first, who always cooked the food that he liked in preference to what she liked, who was basically such a good and kind person.
Hold it, George said to himself. Esther’s not a saint. She has her flaws, too. In fact, my sin, if you want to call it that, is her fault. Partly, at least. If she had not always acted bloody superior, if she had not always been so damned condescending of his little masculine foibles, as she called them, in short, if she had made him feel like the lord of the jungle rather than an old tomcat past his prime, Veronica would not have happened. If Esther had accepted his foolish smelly masculinity, his vulgar sexual nature, he would not have become a joyless creature, he would not have had his crisis of death and degeneration, he would not have been attracted to the joy of Veronica. If Esther had allowed him to be himself in his own home, he would not have been attracted to Veronica’s room.
Could he help it if he was a man with slightly quirky sexual tastes? Not even quirky, really, well within the realm of normality. But Esther was very conventional in that regard. Even when they were first married, while she agreed to some experimentation, he could tell her heart was not really in it and after awh
ile he stopped making suggestions. Not that their sex life was unsatisfactory. It was regular at least, regular and routine. But when Esther felt joy in the sex act, and he could not be sure that she felt such release as he experienced, she would carry on about how the physical is a manifestation of the spiritual. If Esther had been more open to having a little fun with the whole business, he would never have looked at Veronica in the first place. And if she had not gone into what amounted to purda at the death of her sister, he might not have continued seeing Veronica after that first night. Not that it was not his fault, of course the whole mess was mainly his fault, but Esther had something to answer for, too.
Esther was so self-satisfied about her own comportment, her own actions. She never looked at him, really looked, but if he faced her with that accusation, she would say, but dear, I do look at you. I’m looking at you right now. And she would be, her dark eyes aglow with affection and admiration. But she didn’t see him. If she truly saw him, she could not have failed to notice his restored energy, his changed appearance, the changes in his daily habits. For a woman who watched every little detail of household arrangements, food partaken, food not partaken, who tallied leftovers and laundry as though she were a tax auditor, he had been constantly surprised that he had gotten away with so much. Often he ate lightly at home because he knew that he would be dining or snacking with Veronica. He took up jogging as an excuse to see her more often. Such changes he could refer to an annual check-up and doctor’s orders. But his glowing countenance, his smoother brow, the way he seemed to dance rather than shuffle through his days, she never mentioned. Perhaps she thought these were due to his new diet and exercise routine. More likely, he decided, it was because she had not looked at him for several years. He knew that Esther loved him, but she loved him as she might a child rather than as a man or even as an intelligent adult human being. The house, raising Delores, their social circle, their budget, these were her interests, about which she made the decisions. She constantly, albeit gently, made jokes about absent-minded professors who wouldn’t know how to get along in the real world of daily living, of business and finance and ordinary people. She told such stories widely with a teasing condescension that amounted to pride in her voice. She didn’t want him to be different. She loved him. But if Esther had expected more of him, demanded more of him, demanded that he take some responsibility for mundane tasks, he might have felt more a part of her life and the life of the home. And she could have taken a greater interest in his life, the important aspect of his life, his work, which she regarded as little more than a science kit project for the school fair. If Esther had appreciated his intelligence, had supported his intellectual endeavours, Veronica would never have happened.
The truth was that, in spite of her university degree, a degree in education which, let’s face it, he told himself, was a job-oriented training program rather than an intellectual exploration of ideas, Esther was basically a simple soul. It always amazed him that he had married a non-intellectual. In fact, he had thought her to be more intellectual than she turned out to be. He was a little surprised when she made a career of being a wife and mother. Of course they should have had more children. Esther was the sort to be mother hen to a brood. But that, at least, was not his fault.
Why had he married Esther? Had he been drawn to the side of his nature that was missing? No, George did not think that it was anything as elevated or complicated as that. They’d had a lot of fun together, the gang of them — Helena and Ben, Amanda and Reuben, he and Esther. They had been tremendously compatible as a group. And Esther’s body! How he had lusted after that trim little body with its round wiggly bottom. Why does the lust have to end, thought George sadly. Lust gives the intellect a break.
Which was a necessary condition of balance in life. He had a moment of regret thinking about Veronica. With her he was able to suspend the dominance of his intellect, give it a rest, so to speak. Yes. How that word had seemed to hang in the air above their heads like the blade of a guillotine, a shining blade of thin flexible steel. Do you love me? Tell me yes or no. Yes. His gut reaction. For once in his life he had responded without equivocation, without intellectual qualification. And with that word, something inside him had loosened, something confining had fallen away from around him, as though a cage in which he had been enclosed had shattered, and all he had to do to be free was step out of the rubble and walk away. Yes. How astonishing that a simple act of honesty was able to do that for him. But at what price?
When George returned to his office after lunch, there was a second memo in his mail box, the same number as on the first memo, without a name. He decided that he may as well get it over with. He dialled Veronica’s number. She caught it on the first ring.
“I did it.”
“I know you did it.” He made his voice as cold and clipped as possible.
“I told you I would.”
“And you have. Congratulations.”
“It had to be done.”
“I don’t have time to chat.”
“I need to see you.”
“I’m afraid I’m rather tied up at the moment. I’ll call you when I’m free.”
“I need to see you today.”
“That’s impossible. You’ve made it impossible.”
There was a long silence. George knew that her brain was darting here and there, trying to come up with the best way around him, the best way to deal with him so that she could get what she wanted. “Do you think this was easy for me?” she said. “Can’t you understand that things couldn’t go on, that something had to be done?”
“I would have handled it,” he said, “in my own way. I needed time to arrange it so everyone could have what they wanted. I could have handled it with some tact.”
“Oh, Georgie, when will you understand? This is not a perfect world.”
“I have to go,” he said, stiffly, “I don’t have time for this.”
“I need to see you,” she said. “Today.”
He said nothing.
“If you’d think of someone else for once in your life,” she said, “you might realize that I’m upset.” As she spoke, her voice changed from hard insistence to soft vulnerability. He thought of her body. He thought of the way she was when she had just stepped out of the shower.
He thought of Esther. Esther was waiting for him at home. His home. Their home. She was upset, too. Understandably so. He must go home.
He thought of Veronica waiting for him in her dusky room. He thought of her places that were like warm moist silk. He thought of her smell.
“I can only stay for a few minutes,” he said. “And I can’t get away until three-thirty.”
It was nearly seven. Veronica had kept him too long, longer than George had intended. But she had told the truth when she had said that she was upset and it took some time to settle her down. He walked quickly, one arm swinging freely, the other carrying his briefcase, for even on a day of crisis, it would not have occurred to him to leave his office without his briefcase full of papers.
Now he must face the next hurdle. Esther. He must go through the next fire, Esther waiting for explanations of his actions, for motives of those actions. Would she give him the third degree, ask for times, dates, details? What would she do? Hurl things? Shout? Make a scene?
Try to think sensibly, he told himself. What will Esther do? What can she do? What is the worst she can do? Leave him? Divorce him? No, Esther was not likely to do either. In fact, looking at the situation clearly, George realized that he could not possibly have lost Esther after all these years. It was not thinkable that he would not go on with his life with her in the home they had established together. That was his life. Any other life was out of the question.
At his corner, he lifted his head. There was his house, at the turn in the road. It looked like a nice, comfortable, old-fashioned house where nice people lived and nothing really bad could ever
happen. He could not believe that he would not go in to find Esther contentedly preparing the evening meal, the radio on, or perhaps the small television that they had bought to keep her company when Delores left home. It was on a shelf outside Esther’s range of vision when she was puttering about, but she said she liked to hear the voices as she worked. He could not believe that he would not open the door and go in, that they would not say hello and kiss, that she would not say how was your day and he would not say how was yours, and they would not sit down to an uneventful supper.
He turned down his street. As he got closer to the house, as he could see more of it through the old poplars lining the street, it seemed uncommonly still. There was no light in any of the windows, not even the kitchen side window that he could see because the sidewalk curved. On such a dark, overcast day the light should be on. Had Esther gone out? His heart lifted a moment. He might not have to face the firing squad after all. But as he got closer still, he felt afraid. The street, the scene, it did not look right. The house did not look right. When he paused a moment on the front sidewalk, it seemed to him that the splinters in the wood siding pulsated in an odd manner, that the windows were watching him with a cold blank stare. Get a grip, man, he told himself and stepped through the familiar hedge. But as he rounded the house the feeling of the unfamiliar where the familiar should be persisted. The brick walkway beneath his feet, the back yard, even his own physical being, seemed strange. He felt himself to be a foreign figure in an alien landscape.
