Private affairs : a novel (6 page)

How civilized this is, Elizabeth thought; but she wanted Tony gone, and when dessert and coffee were finished he did leave, citing plane schedules, meetings and interviews in New York, and a hectic week ahead. He thanked them for lunch and good company, and when Elizabeth saw him to the door he did not even say, as he usually did, that he would telephone as soon as he could, and stop off to see her again whenever he could. He simply lifted her hand in his, kissed it gently, and then was gone, leaving Elizabeth wondering how he had managed to control his arrival and departure and almost all the conversation in between.

"Holly and Peter will be home soon," she said to Matt when she returned to the kitchen. "I want to talk to you before they get here."

He was standing at the counter making another pot of coffee. "How often does he show up?"

Stacking dishes at the table, Elizabeth glanced at him. "I've told you every time he's been here. About five times in the past year."

He nodded. "So you did. You did tell me. And he calls more often that that."

"I've told you that, too."

"And he didn't think I'd be home today."

"I'm not sleeping with him, Matt"

"You brought it up; I didn't."

"But that's what you meant," she said angrily.

"That's what he wants. That's what he expects. Does he think I'm blind? Do you?"

"Yes, if you think I'd go to bed with him. Why would you accuse—?" She caught herself.

"Past history. Isn't that enough?"

"Matt! It was more than twenty years ago! And it ended long before I met you, and I told you about it before we were married. We agreed we wouldn't talk about it again."

"We didn't know he'd be lounging in our kitchen sixteen years later, gorging himself, lording it over us with his fame and fortune."

"You're jealous!" Elizabeth said hotly.

"Is that what you call it? Because I'm not an adoring fan of my wife's former lover? You let him call; you let him come for long lunches, 'between planes' as they say. Who the hell believes that? Between planes. Now there's an idea for a new airline bonus plan: Los Angeles to New York, with a stopover for screwing—"

"Matt, stop it!" Elizabeth perched on the edge of the table. "You're looking for reasons to be angry. You're not jealous because Tony and I were lovers one crazy summer when I was seventeen; you're jealous because he's made it very big and he has a lot of the things you want, or seems to have." She went to him where he stood leaning against the counter. "Please let's not quarrel. When you were in the hospital I was thinking I'd almost lost you and I couldn't bear it; it was so terrible. We mustn't fight, especially over Tony, of all people; he doesn't mean a thing to me."

"Doesn't he? Didn't someone say first loves never die?"

"That's the most idiotic— Who was yours?" she asked abruptly.

"You," he said, and smiled—in memory, Elizabeth thought, not to end their quarrel.

She threw back her head. "Why can't we be grown up and laugh together? I told you, it took me a long time to get over Tony after he dropped me, but I did, and then a couple of years later I met you and you were so much more wonderful—more honest, more real—I was crazy about you from the minute you put your arms around me and made me feel I belonged . , . Oh, damn it, Matt, there hasn't been anyone else since then. You know that."

"I know your friend is on our doorstep. After all these years, showing up between planes, droning on about his superiority."

"Matt, let it go!" She began stacking dishes again, banging them recklessly. "Why do you keep bringing him up? He's not a serious person!"

"He's a very serious person. In his own dramatic way he's as serious as they come. He's decided he loves you. From afar, of course. It's safer that way, as long as you're married, and it adds to the drama: unattainable love, at least for now, like a shining star, remote, unreachable—what is it?"

Elizabeth was staring at him. "I didn't think you understood—"

"My God, you don't give me much credit. If you'd asked me what I thought about him, I would have told you."

"You could have brought it up without being asked. Whenever I told you he'd been here you didn't say anything. We never talked about him."

"Or anything else. I'd better sit down; I'm feeling shaky."

"Let me help you."

"No thanks." He made his way to the living room and Elizabeth followed, biting her lip. The truth was, she hadn't wanted to talk to Matt about Tony, about those phone calls and long lunches where he pretended she'd been his one true love for more than twenty years, that he should have stayed with her instead of marrying someone else, that he'd longed for her ever since. Matt would have asked why she listened to it, and how could she tell him she listened because even though she knew it was playacting it made her feel young?

And I don't, Matt would say.

We never talk about that.

"No, we never talked about him," Matt said as if there had been no break in the conversation. He was in his chair again, gazing through the window, his face hard. "But, at the very least, isn't it a bit curious—and worth a discussion between husband and wife? Old lover comes calling. Between planes."

"Matt." She sat on a hassock beside his chair, her chin on her clasped hands. "We have more important things to talk about."

"Such as?"

"Your lousy mood. Your depression. What you'll do when you're recovered. What I'll do. What this family will do."

Matt looked at her curiously. "Why should anything change?"

"It already has. You know that. It's been changing for years, but I didn't really think about it until Zachary died. Now I think about it all the time."

"Think about what?"

"What's happened to us. What we've lost. It's not only Tony we don't talk about; we don't talk about anything except the house and the chil-

dren, the printing company, sometimes my job at the Examiner . . , Everyday things; surface things."

Matt nodded. He was looking at the garden again, thinking it had never looked so lovely. Flowers bordered the patio, vegetables flourished in the corner, irrigated by a system Peter had invented when he was ten. A beautiful courtyard in a beautiful home, filled with life. Maybe that's why it looked especially lovely. Another few inches in the car, and he'd never have seen it again.

How short is a man's life?

Once I might have asked how long it was. No more.

He glanced at Elizabeth, and suddenly, thinking of Tony, he realized how beautiful she was. Other men and women frequently told him so and he always agreed, but when had he last looked at her through the eyes of someone else? When had he last thought of his wife as a stunning woman, instead of thinking that Holly was growing up to be as lovely as her mother? When had he last thought of Elizabeth?

In two months they'd both be forty. Did she think time was slipping away from her, leaving so much undone? Did she think she was a failure? Did she ask herself how short was a woman's life?

"Matt." Elizabeth was studying him, her chin still resting on her hands. "How much have we lost? We had so much love and excitement about each other; we talked about everything. And you never would have thought I was sleeping with another man."

He pondered it. "We let other things fill our time, use up our energy, wear us down. ..."

'Td like to be a frazzled wreck," Elizabeth murmured.

"What?"

"Oh, just something silly that occurred to me, weeks ago, when I was thinking about us: that we'd gotten . . . stale. Static. And then, after Zachary died, and you were always so angry, so dissatisfied with what we have—"

"Aren't you?" he demanded, and then it all burst from him. "Christ, Elizabeth, aren't you angry and upset over what's happened to us? You asked me what we've lost. I'll tell you: we've lost the idea that we could be anything we want! Doesn't that scare you? It scares the hell out of me. Once upon a time you won prizes, everyone predicted a wonderful future—"

"You won the same prizes="

"God damn it, that's the whole point! Did we ever imagine we'd be— what was it you said? Stale. Static. If anyone had predicted that for us we'd have said he was crazy. We knew what we wanted, remember? You

couldn't wait to have your own column; I was going to be a publisher; we were going to buy a newspaper. Maybe two. Do you remember? What the hell happened to us, Elizabeth? We're almost forty and where are we? How did we get to be such different people? Doesn't that bother you? Am I the only one with this rage eating me up inside?"

Elizabeth had straightened her back and was watching him, her eyes bright with anger. "I don't rage. I've thought we were pretty lucky in what we had. But you're right: I don't always like writing for other people. And it's nice to know you haven't forgotten that I had my own dreams; that you aren't the only one who gave up a lot when we came here—"

"I never forgot that"

"Maybe I heard you wrong. Just before Tony arrived I thought I heard you say you weren't getting any younger. And I thought I heard, When the hell am I going to break out and do the things I really want?"

Slowly, Matt nodded. "And you said you felt invisible. You're right; I was feeling sorry for myself."

"You were wallowing in it. You still are." Elizabeth began to walk about the room. "That's all you've done since Zachary died: feel sorry for yourself." She turned on him. "Damn it, if you're so frustrated and unhappy, why don't you do something about it instead of moping around making the rest of us miserable? If the printing company is a millstone, get rid of it! Who's forcing you to keep it? If you want a newspaper, buy one! What's stopping you?"

"I'm not an irresponsible infant, that's what's stopping me! For Christ's sake, I have a family, a home, a father who ... no, scratch that; I don't have a father. But I have people dependent on me and I don't go running off in all directions satisfying my deepest desires until I know my family is taken care of."

"Did you ask your family how they felt about it? Did you try to find out which they'd rather have—an unhappy grouch or someone going after his dreams?"

"Dreams don't buy groceries."

"Did you ask us!"

"No." Matt shifted in his chair. "What if I had? What would you have said if I'd told you I was selling the company?"

"I'd ask how much you could get for it."

Surprise flashed across his face. "And if I said I was buying a newspaper?"

"I'd ask if it was the Chieftain."

His eyebrows shot up. "Why?"

"Because it's in trouble and it's been for sale for six months and if you were buying a paper, that's the kind you'd look for."

Smiling slightly, he said, "And if I'd looked, I'd have learned they want two million for it."

"So you have looked. Then you know they're desperate and would probably take half that."

His smile broadened. "Only half? Only one measly million?"

Elizabeth stopped pacing. "Only one," she said lightly. "We might have to hock a few things to raise it—"

"Small things. The house—"

"And the cars—"

"Only one of them. We'd need the other to get to work."

And suddenly they were laughing together, the first time in months. Elizabeth came back to the hassock and sat down. Matt touched her hair. "We need shelter, too."

"We'll rent a place," she said.

"In the tourist season? Few places; high prices."

"Then we'll camp in the mountains until Labor Day. When we sell everything, we'll keep our camping gear."

"Back to nature for the pioneering Lovells. Of course, if we fail, we'd be left with nothing, but I suppose we could always—"

"How could we fail?" She smiled gaily. "You were just telling me how everyone predicted our success. And we're not youngsters just starting out; maybe it's not so bad, being forty. It means we're mature, experienced, and sensible."

Matt laughed shortly. "Mature and sensible." And Elizabeth knew he meant, That's why this is only a game.

But what if it weren't? What if they were really planning to start fresh, make a new life, fall in love all over again, believe in endless possibilities as they had, long ago?

She closed her eyes. The idea was a tantalizing flame. But then she thought, two children close to college, our home, our security, maybe other accidents, or illness: we're not getting any younger, so many things can happen. . . .

Wait a minute! We're not old! Though we will be if Matt doesn't pull out of his depression, get rid of his rage, stop feeling like a failure. . . .

And what about me? Elizabeth remembered how restless and impatient she'd been lately, pushing aside thoughts of things that were wrong. Was it because she was a woman that she pushed them aside while Matt raged? Was she too easily satisfied? What had happened to her ambitions?

We're a cautious bunch. Matt had told Tony. In our little backwater.

Does Matt think Vm too cautious, tying him down in a backwater?

"If we're really mature," she said, "we'd know when it's time to change. Do sensible people stand still if they have a choice?"

"The choice is to risk everything we have."

Panic flared inside her; she fought it down. They'd just been laughing together, for the first time in months. And she'd seen the brightness in Matt's eyes. "How mature and sensible of us to recognize that. Because when people try to pick up where they left off and go after something they've wanted as long as they can remember, they ought to start out with their eyes wide open. Don't you think so?" Then the fear came back and she added, "Unless there's too much risk. We don't have to decide now; this is a game we can play around with for a while. . . ."

But Matt's head was tilted in the way he had when he was weighing choices and coming to a conclusion. He reached out his hand and took hers. "Thank you, my love." His voice was husky. "You're a remarkable woman. You know we're not playing a game. You've known we weren't from the beginning. We've been shaping a life."

For a while they kept it to themselves, a secret they hugged close until they were alone at night and then endlessly discussed. For two weeks it was all they talked about. They read back issues of the Chieftain and then the Examiner, studying it as if it were their competition; they looked at circulation figures and advertising rates and scribbled numbers: a million to purchase the paper, a quarter of a million a year for the staff of fifteen people, costs of supplies, maintenance on equipment and the building, financing new equipment when they needed it, the cost of typesetting computers as soon as they could afford them, revenue from subscriptions and advertising.