Marry Me (25 page)

Is Theodora’s nap usually now?

No, but she loves to sleep. She’s like me. Lazy.

You’re not lazy. You’re lovely.

You just like my costume.

Any kid of mine would be barging in right about now.

You and Ruth don’t discipline your children.

Is that what everybody says?

I say it.

You’re tough.

‘Jerry boy!’ Richard came down the hall and Jerry flinched in self-defence; but the bigger man merely squeezed Jerry’s shoulders, as if to possess some fact offered for his understanding. His wiry dark hair looked tousled, enlarging his already large head. ‘Dear Ruth.’ He kissed her hand, a grave antic in the dim colonial hall.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘How are you, Richard?’

‘Oh, he’s
fine,’
Sally called, unseen and shrill from beyond the hall. ‘He hasn’t been so happy in ages. Look at him,
look
!’ And it was true, Jerry saw, as they moved to the bright living room, that Richard, glazed with sweat, pranced, or minced, with the unnatural freedom of motion of a bear on roller skates.

But Sally’s beauty took Jerry’s eyes. In the intervals between seeing her, no matter how brief, he lost full knowledge of how she brimmed for him. At volleyball, amid the dodging and shuffle, each time he glimpsed her face through the net and dust he was freshly filled, a few drops of his knowing having evaporated in the seconds since his last vision of her. She sat primly upright in their wing-backed chair, the one covered with yellow gabardine. Her legs were crossed, so the full length of one shin gleamed in the room, and her long hands lay crossed in her lap. She was tall in the chair. Jerry always forgot, how tall she was, how wide in the hips, as if he could not believe that his immaterial need to love had been given such body. He called to her softly, ‘Hi.’

She echoed, ‘Hi,’ and made the mouth that he loved, the humorous and fearful now-what? mouth that would come after a confession.

But why tell me?

I thought you should know. I want you to know me. If we must fall in love, I want you to love me as I am. As I was.

How many were there?

We were separated, Jerry. It didn’t seem too many. At first, I was so proud of myself, I went a whole month without a man.

‘What would we like to drink?’ Richard asked. He was wearing dirty suntans and a striped button-down shirt whose sleeves he had rolled up above his elbows, proletarian-style. The back of his shirt was dark with sweat, as if he were still living in the summer that was over. ‘I’ve already had a drink,’ he went on, speaking mostly to Ruth. ‘In fact, more than a drink. I feel like celebrating, it’s like becoming a father. I’ve become the proud daddy of two fine horns. True, the little devils are six months old, but I was away on business when they were born, and somehow they’ve been growing up without me, just jutting and poking along.’

‘See?’ Sally said to Jerry. ‘It’s a joke. He doesn’t care about me, he thinks it’s funny.’

Jerry shrugged. ‘It’s his night,’ he told her.

Richard turned with his curious massive ease, a jug of California sauterne slung across his shoulder in hillbilly manner, his head tilted as always.
‘Thank
you, Jerry’ he said. ‘I like that. My night. It
is
my night. You’ve had
your
night’ – he bowed to Ruth – ‘and you two have had your night – nights. And now it’s mine. Everybody gets a night. Jerry, look.’ With the hand not touching the jug he made horns on his forehead. ‘My son the cuckold. Nobody’s laughing.’

‘What did you get us over for?’ Ruth asked. ‘It’s late.’

‘Ruth,’ he said, ‘you’re right. You’re always right. I wish you were my friend.’

‘I am your friend,’ she said.

‘Would you like to marry me?’

Ruth, blushing, refused the proposal as gently as if it had been seriously made. ‘Thank you,’ she said, flirting
her head in a way Jerry didn’t recognize, ‘but I don’t think
you
want it, and I don’t think
I
want it.’ Richard stood flatfooted and blinking, the jug wobbling on his shoulder. ‘But it’s a pretty thought,’ Ruth added.

Richard said, ‘I’m only trying to find out what I’m supposed to do. I’ve been let in late; forgive me if I seem stupid.’

Jerry, always an eager and rude guest at the Mathiases, gestured towards the jug and asked, ‘Are we going to drink that?’

Richard looked amazed, and slowly said, ‘No, Jerry. It’s not good enough, is it? It’s what college kids drink at beach picnics, and I think we’re out of that now. I think we’re too mature for that now, some of us more than others. Right?’

He waited, and Jerry had to say, ‘Right.’

‘But I
do
see wine, don’t you, Jerry boy? For this occasion. White, don’t you think? White for innocence? For our two chaste brides here? I have some Chilean, but maybe that’s a bit artsy-craftsy You’re the artsy-craftiest person here, I’ll let you decide. Not Chilean. Some Bordeaux. No, not after dinner. I assume you’ve both eaten.’

‘Sure,’ Jerry said. Like Ruth before him, he felt genuinely asked. He had expected to be condemned, and instead was being fed. Ruth glared to get his attention and drew an upward arc across her mouth, to indicate that he was smiling and should stop.

Richard was rummaging crashingly through the bottles in his crowded liquor cabinet. It was an entire closet, refurbished with a little sink, built thick with shelves bottle-crammed. His stained back straightened
and he dragged forth by its neck a yellow bottle, bigger than a quart, with a yellow label. ‘Retsina!’ he proclaimed. ‘A good-a Grec-a beve
ree
ga! The Greeks know how to meet their fate.’ From another shelf he produced four wineglasses, tulip-shaped, and blew out the dust, and set them on the tiled coffee table in a careful rectangle. He considered, switched the glasses into a different rectangle, glanced sideways at Jerry, and made as if to guffaw and slap the other man on the back. But the guffaw was noiseless and his hand halted before it touched Jerry, who had already winced. Richard uncorked the bottle, poured, carried a glass to his wife and another to Ruth, handed one to Jerry, and lifted his own to the level of his eyes, to the eye that saw. He studied the liquor as if for sediment and spoke slowly. ‘I would like to propose a toast, but since all three of you are not my friends that leaves only me. So I propose a toast to me. To
me
.’ He drank, and the others might have followed, but he lowered his glass before they could lift theirs. ‘Nobody’s drinking,’ he said. ‘How rude. How uncivil. May I try again? Another toast. Let me think. To happiness? Let’s not be silly. To the Queen? Who-dat? Ah. Our children. To our children. To the cunning little devils, all – how many do you have, Jerry? I’ve forgotten.’

‘Three.’

‘Three. Right. You’re a good father. I’ve always thought that about you, that you’re a good father. A swell dad. Here we go. To the half-dozen little devils, the future of America, God bless ’em every one.’ Sally, obedient, sipped; Ruth and Jerry followed. The retsina smelled like scorched varnish and tasted medicinal.
Drinking in unison aligned them in a ceremony, whose central mystery was still to be divulged.

Ruth, entering the room, had taken the first chair inside the doorway, a rush-seated ladder-back that had strayed from the dining room. Jerry had seated himself on the centre of the white goosedown sofa, so that the two women – Ruth near the doorway and Sally in the wing chair near the fireplace – were equidistant from him. He crossed his legs and spaciously spread his arms along the sofa back. Now Richard overweighted Ruth’s side of the room by sitting heavily near her, in the worn leather armchair that Sally hated, Jerry knew.

Why should you hate it?

It’s just like him. Isn’t that awful? I mean of me to say.

Creased and flaking, it had been his father’s chair. As he sank into the dour mass of old leather, Richard became his father’s revenant. He put his hand limply to his forehead and his voice took on a deadly, deceptive weariness.

He said, ‘Jerry, Sally tells me you’re a big ass man. Frankly, I was surprised.’

Jerry sipped again, and said, ‘Are you sure this stuff is safe to drink?’

‘It’ll grow on you,’ Richard promised. ‘It has resin in it. I move a dozen cases of it a month. It’s only twenty proof. I mean, Jesus, Jerry boy, you just haven’t acted the way human beings are supposed to act.’

‘How is that? Tell me.’

‘I don’t mean just fucking her, I can’t get too sore about your fucking her, I’ve done it myself, and I’m not the only one. I suppose she told you? That winter
I was away. She even fucked the ski instructor.’

Jerry nodded.

‘But for Chrissakes, Jerry you should’ve either broken it off or run off with her. You’ve put that woman through hell. You’ve put – my wife – through hell.’ He slapped the arm of the chair three times for emphasis.

Jerry shrugged. ‘I have a wife too.’

‘Well you have to pick. In our society you have to pick.’

‘Don’t make him!’ Ruth cried suddenly. ‘This isn’t the time.’

Richard turned to her lazily. ‘Shit, Ruth. Six months. They’ve tried to break it off. If it’s lasted six months, it’ll last forever.’

It was wonderful to hear. Jerry felt that with Richard they had arrived at firm ground at last. ‘Longer than that,’ he said. ‘I’ve always loved Sally.’

‘Fine,’ Richard said. ‘Done and done. Sally babes, get me a pencil and paper.’

Ruth jumped up. ‘What are you saying, Jerry? No.
No.
I won’t stay.’ She was quickly through the doorway. Jerry caught her in the hall that ran between the kitchen and the front door.

‘Ruth,’ he said. ‘You know how it is now. You know we have nothing. Let me go. Please let it go now.’

His wife’s breath was hot and moist and flickering. ‘She’s a bitch. She’ll kill you. She’ll kill you like she’s half-killed him.’

‘It’s silly of you to hate Sally. She’s helpless.’

‘How can you say she’s helpless? Who do you think’s got us all here? We’re dancing at her wedding.’

‘Don’t go. Don’t leave us.’

‘Why should I stay and see you stripped clean by these two vultures? Of your children, of your talent, of your money –’

‘Money?’

‘Why do you think Richard wants pencil and paper? He’s happy. Can’t you see that, Jerry? He’s happy because he’s getting rid of her.’

‘He’s drunk.’

‘Let me go. Save your lover routine for others.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He had been pressing her against the wall, holding her shoulders tightly in a forcible arrest. Yet, released, she did not move towards the door, but stood sullen, softly panting, all her skin breathing the strange familiar warmth of his wife. ‘Come back and talk to us,’ he begged.

‘I’m going back,’ she said, ‘and fight for you. And not because I like you but because I don’t like these other people.’

‘Not Richard either?’

‘I hate him.’

‘Don’t hate,’ he begged. ‘We’re all too close to hate. We must all love each other now.’ As a boy he had been bored by all of church except communion, the moment when a crowd of them rumbled to the rail and dissolved the wafer in their mouths. Now he felt that in the living room something comparable would occur, or had occurred. His unbelieving wife let herself be led back. He was proud to show the Mathiases that he could still control her – that she was his wife to the end.

Richard had found pencil and paper and had shifted to the edge of the chair, so he could write on the coffee table. Sally had not moved, and the eyes of her
heart-shaped, swollen face were shut. Upstairs, the baby their coming had awakened was still crying. ‘Sally,’ Richard said, ‘your child is crying.’ With a rigid reflex of the defensively flamboyant bearing that had distinguished her from the good women of Connecticut, Sally rose and stroked back her hair and with long strides left the room.

Why are you crying? Sally? Why?

It’s too silly. I’m sorry

Tell me. Please tell me.

You’ll laugh.

No I won’t.

I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined it for you.

No you haven’t. Listen, you’re lovely. Tell me.

I just remembered it’s Ash Wednesday.

Oh. My poor love. My lovely lapsed Catholic.

Am I lapsed?

Not if you care about Ash Wednesday. Get up. Get up, put on your clothes and go to church and get your smooch.

It’s so hypocritical.

No. I know just how it is.

I must really be crazy if I can lie with a man and start worrying about Ash Wednesday. I’ve ruined it for you. You’re getting sad and soft.

No, I love your remembering. There’s such a thing as spiritual satisfaction too. You satisfy me. Go. Leave me. Go to Mass.

I don’t want to now.

Wait. I’m trying to reach the ashtray.

Don’t be blasphemous, Jerry. I’m frightened.

Who isn’t?

Ruth, infected by Sally’s show of energy, crossed to
the Buffet print above the fireplace and said, ‘That’s a lousy painting. All these are lousy.’ Her wave took in the Wyeth print, the Käthe Kollwitz lithographs, the anonymous watercolour of a single skier poised with his blue shadow beneath a sky of the same slanting blue. Ruth included the furniture. ‘Trashy’ she said. ‘She has expensive, trashy taste.’

Both Richard and Jerry laughed. Then Richard said mellifluously ‘Ruth, you have qualities she doesn’t have, and Sally has qualities
you
don’t have.’

‘Oh I
know
that,’ she said hurriedly, blushing, and Jerry resented it, that Richard had taken it upon himself to rebuke her, when she was so naturally shy.

Richard went on, ‘But you’re both very desirable women, and I’m sorry neither of you wants to be married to
me.’