Perfect Freedom (11 page)

The thought of going alone to his dark room with the wind howling around him frightened Robbie. “I'm so hungry I won't be able to sleep,” he suggested piteously.

“Now, none of that nonsense.” Stuart saw the boy looking to his mother for support and was pleased that she offered him no more than a dutiful kiss.

“You poor darling,” she said with marked irony.

“All right. Run along. Skip,” he said sharply. Robbie disentangled himself from her embrace, kissed his father, and departed with dragging feet.

“We can't have any of that,” Stuart said when the boy was gone.

“Of what?”

“We mustn't baby the kid. I don't want him to be a softie.”

She was aware that the wind had keyed them both up to the snapping point. Having to raise their voices to make themselves heard distorted everything they said. Stuart might not have meant to speak so harshly to the boy but Robbie probably deserved it. She suspected that he tried to cause trouble between them when it suited his purpose. The thought made her feel like an unnatural mother. How could Stuart accuse her of being soft with the child? “Do you think I baby him?” she shouted.

“Not particularly.” He approached so that they could speak in more normal tones. “It's something we're both apt to do with an only child.”

“Speak for yourself,” she burst out. His proximity made her skin crawl with desire. The wind dinned at her nerves. She wanted him to tear her clothes off and take her violently. “At times, I can't bear him. It's all very well for you. He worships you because you only see him when you're ready to give him your full attention. I have him underfoot all the time.”

“Come on, my dearest. You sound as if you were jealous of him.”

“Jealous? Maybe I am.” The word reminded her of Mme. Antonin's reference to an unknown woman and fanned an ember of suspicion. “You see people when you go out. I'm always here. Who's the Widow Muguette?”

“The Widow Muguette? What an absurd name. I don't know her.” He was prepared for it to come up sooner or later. He couldn't feel guilty about Odette. She was completely extraneous to their life. The only wrong was to be found out. “Wait a minute.
La Veuve Muguette
. Of course. That's the name of the woman Odette works for. It didn't sound right in English.”

“She lives near a bakery?” Helene demanded while her suspicions died.

“Does she? Possibly. She lives somewhere around the square. That's where I always run into her. Odette, I mean. As far as I know, I've never laid eyes on
la Veuve Muguette
.”

The careless humor in his voice almost brought her to her knees before him to beg his forgiveness for something she couldn't define. She covered her eyes with a hand and tried to collect her thoughts.

“I don't know what this is all about,” he said lightly. “I better take a look around outside before we turn in.” He put on his leather jacket and picked up a flashlight without looking at her again. He needed air. It hadn't been a close call exactly but it had given him a slight jolt. Eventually Mme. Antonin or somebody else was bound to mention seeing him near the bakery. He would get Odette to introduce him to her widow so that he could tell Helene that she had shown him her room. Keep it as open and truthful as possible. He couldn't allow his harmless fun to assume any importance between them.

It was bitterly cold outside. It seemed as if a hole had been torn in the universe. Everything was in an uproar. The wind screamed in the trees and the sea crashed against the rocks and under the beam of his flashlight the world was pitching in violent motion around him. He discovered that one of the supports of the outhouse had given way. He tried to do something to secure it but found it was hopeless in the face of the gale.

He struggled against the wind up to the garage and was relieved to find it still standing, but as he played his light on the cane roof a strip flew up into the air and slapped down on top of the car. He leaped up onto the hood and pulled himself up onto the crossbeam, tearing his hands. He managed to pull it into place across its supports and lay on it. He yelled for Helene and the act of calling for her strengthened the bond between them like an embrace. The cane roof rattled beneath him. If he wanted to save it, he would have to wait here until she grew uneasy and came to look for him.

She sat with her head propped in her hand, her eyes closed, fighting a sudden inexplicable despair. She had driven him from her. It was so senseless. When he was with her, she was happy. It was simple but it didn't include Robbie.
At times, I can't bear him.
She couldn't believe she had said it but it was true. His constant presence inhibited her. Even when she and Stuart were making love, she felt Robbie near. She was appalled that she could think of her son as a barrier to her happiness. It was enough to plunge any mother into despair. What of the satisfactions of maternity?

She lifted her head and her emergence from the protection afforded her by her closed eyes made her feel as if she were coming out of a sort of madness. She forced herself to think of Robbie's difficult birth and how she had prayed for his survival. She had made him with Stuart. He was an extension of their love. If she thought of him as an intruder at times it was an aberration she would get over. She hadn't yet adjusted to their altered life.

She pushed her hair into place with her hands and held them pressed against her cheeks, absorbed in thoughts of welcoming Stuart in a way that would make him forget everything she had said. She rose and went to a chest and pulled out an extra blanket. Aware of how cold it was in the house, she wrapped it around her and sat on the end of the bed. What had he said? He was going to look around outside. Why was he taking so long? She stood up and threw aside the blanket and went out.

It took all her strength to close the door behind her and she clung to it for a moment, hunched against the wind. She could see nothing. She called and the wind almost choked her. She called again and then pushed herself out from the shelter of the door and stumbled up the glade.

He heard her call and bellowed in reply. He fumbled for his light. He had put it on the roof beside him and couldn't find it.

“Where are you?” she called.

“Up here, on the roof,” he yelled. He could see her dim shape moving in front of the garage. “Up here. Up here,” he shouted with all his strength. His hand found the light at last and he switched it on quickly. She stumbled in under the shelter of the garage and peered up at the light.

“What are you doing up there?” she asked. Out of relief, she burst into laughter, hysterically at first, but as he responded, it deepened and became real.

“For God's sake, get me the hammer and some nails and that wire in the bottom of the cupboard,” he blurted out between her paroxysms.

“Oh, darling, you look so funny up there.” She doubled up with renewed giggles and then pulled herself together and let herself be blown back to the house, happy again and at peace with being useful to him. Together they reinforced the roof, Stuart hammering and wiring while Helene held the light, perched on the hood of the car. They returned to the house, tingling with cold but closely joined by their shared effort. They undressed hastily and plunged into bed, moving close to each other for warmth.

He took her to him with a fierce abandon generated by the fury of the wind and his need to reaffirm the transcendent bond that joined them. She knew that only he could offer her the whole sensation of love and she listened to the wind beating at the house as if it were an exultant beating in her veins.

Robbie had trouble sleeping. He heard his mother's voice raised angrily although the roar of the wind was so great that he wasn't able to hear the words. He must have dozed but he woke again and there was no sound but the sound of the storm. He was terrified by its violence. He got out of bed and tiptoed to the door and peeked out for reassurance. The lights were on but the room was empty. His parents sometimes went for a stroll before bedtime but why would they go out tonight? He closed the door and hurried back to bed.

Everything seemed to be moving in the room. He closed his eyes and hid his head under the covers. He dozed again. He awoke a second time with a prayer that his parents had returned and he rose once more and opened the door cautiously. The room was in darkness. His parents must be there. He strained his eyes against the dark and then he saw movement on the bed in the corner. He looked hard for another moment and then the movement came so clear that it brought a dreadful image to his mind. Michel and the little girl. He stared with disbelief. The world seemed to crumble and fall to pieces around him and he stumbled blindly back to bed.

It couldn't be. It mustn't be. Not his mother. The plump little girl grew monstrous in his mind and he buried his head in his pillow to shut the image out. His heart pounded and his body was rigid with horror. He would kill his father. He would run away with his mother. She would protect him from everything nasty and hateful that threatened to overpower him. A great sob burst from his chest and his tears flowed with pity for himself in the face of the terrible unknown.

The wind blew. On the second day a branch crashed into the roof and from then on there was the clatter of tiles being hurled to the ground. The wind dropped suddenly on the fourth night and by next morning rain was falling steadily. The Coslings watched with dismay as a stain spread across the fresh white ceiling. At least their fires were working again.

They went to Boldoni's for several meals while the wind was blowing and it surprised Stuart how much he begrudged even such a small expenditure. It took him several days to tidy up the place, including the installation of caps for the chimneys. They cost money, as did new tiles for the roof and materials for consolidating the outhouse. They were all a bit nervy and Stuart and Helene paid little attention to Robbie's odd sullen hostility.

Christmas was spartan. Wind followed rain in dreary succession. With the coming of the new year, the money situation looked increasingly alarming. After a hard day's work, his will weakened by exhaustion, Stuart couldn't help wondering if he'd be able to hold out against continued adversity.

The news in the paper about the deepening depression was some consolation. These were tough times for everybody; Hoover's attempts to create prosperity by proclamation had failed. When he steadfastly reminded himself of the value in the life he was making, his independence of others, the satisfaction of making things grow, of turning the land to productivity, the healthy contact with nature he was providing Robbie, the close intertwining of his and Helene's lives away from city distractions and city nerves, he could almost convince himself that anything that made so much sense was bound to work out.

A note arrived from Sir Bennett, who was in Monte Carlo, proposing a trip to see them. Helene refused to let him come and Stuart to his surprise found that he agreed with her. After his proud self-confidence of the late summer, he didn't want Uncle Ben to see them now. The house looked battered and shabby, with its stained ceiling and smoke-streaked fireplace, and he knew that they did, too. He wrote saying that Helene and Robbie were both under the weather and suggested that they put it off till a little later.

It was like inviting the judgment of God. The letter was barely dispatched before Robbie took sick. Within twenty-four hours they realized that it was a serious illness and they bundled him into the Rolls and rushed him to Cannes. It was scarlet fever.

The hospital, which looked like a rather grand villa, the faint slap and swish of rubber-soled nurses moving through linoleum halls, the medicinal smells, the depressing paraphernalia, the whispered conferences with self-important doctors, the terrible words mastoiditis and meningitis and others Stuart didn't know, above all Robbie, turning and twisting in his bed, crying out incoherently—it all became a dull repetitious nightmare.

Through it all, Helene thought, when she could think at all: I've been selfish. I haven't given him all my attention. I've thought too much of Stuart and myself. Oh, God, let him live. Let him live and I'll never think of anybody else again. He'll be all my life. I don't ask for anything else. Let him live.

And Stuart: It's going to be all right. It's got to be all right. He's tough, he'll be all right. We'll be closer than ever. These things are hell while they're going on but there's good in it, there's something to be learned. A deeper awareness of themselves as a family. Goddammit, Robbie, my boy, you've got to get well.

When the crisis had passed, Stuart was faced with the ruin of all his plans. “I better go back tomorrow,” he told Helene as they were having lunch in a modest restaurant next to the hospital the day after they had been assured there was no further cause for alarm. “It's just an extra expense my being here.”

“I suppose so,” Helene said listlessly. For the first time in their life together, she believed that she didn't care what he did. A mood of self-sacrifice was strong within her. If she allowed herself a second to think of Stuart, Robbie might still be snatched from her. Let him do what he pleased. She would be free to devote herself to Robbie during the long convalescence.

“Don't worry about anything. You have enough money for the moment. I'll arrange to get more for the doctors and the hospital.” How? He hadn't the slightest idea. Uncle Ben had come over from Monte Carlo and had given him a check “to help out.” It barely made a dent on the medical expenses. While he could accept a present from him, his relations with Uncle Ben had never been such that he could ask him for more help. The old man would definitely not consider it good form. Of course, he could draw on his capital but even considering it felt like failure. He had accepted a challenge. He had been able to afford the place only because it had been an incredible bargain. If he went on putting money into it, it would no longer be a bargain but a folly. As of now, he needed half its purchase price just to keep afloat, without anything left over for developing the land further. He appeared to be headed for the moment when his income would go below survival level and there would be no alternative but to go back to New York and get a job. While they still could, wouldn't it be more sensible to revert to their original plan of renting or buying a small house and living reasonably comfortably without struggling with the elements? It was too soon to discuss it with Helene.