Perfect Freedom (56 page)

“We've had a little spin around Italy. Wonderful party, isn't it? Quite an impressive guest list.”

“Not bad, as pansies and whores and international has-beens go. We have quite a nice selection of those at our end of the coast. Are you coming to stay with us again, Stanley?” He was having difficulty forming his words. Better take it easy on the drink, he warned himself.

“Not this time, worse luck. Time to head for home. It's been the best summer I've had for years. When I'm back at the factory, I'll be thinking of you. You knew the answer all along and stuck to it.”

“You really think so, Stanley? You're a bigger fool than I thought you were.”

“Thanks, old man. Nice of you to say so. What seems to be the trouble?”

“Trouble? How could there be any trouble? I was talking to a fellow a little while ago who thinks we need a war to save civilization. Are you aware of the civilizing effects of war, Stanley?”

“Take it easy, fellow, take it easy. Had a bit to drink, haven't you?”

“Yes, I've had a bit to drink. Isn't that the answer you were speaking of? Or did you mean a life of luxury and ease?” His voice rose as his mind drifted back to vanished dreams. He was launched, words slowly led to other words. “That was an accident, you know. Remember the spinach? I'm the fellow who wanted to dig his feet in the good earth and grow like a tree. And you're the fellow who wanted to write a good book. Remember? What happened? That's a good question and I'll try to answer it for you. Take myself, for instance. I thought there was more to life than making money. I wanted to be free to live the kind of life that seemed good to me. That meant being on the land and growing things. There's nothing wrong with that, is there, Stanley? It's a free country. Except that it isn't. There's no such thing as freedom. It's just something somebody put in a book and I believed it. I bet everybody here believes it, too. The sacred right of the individual to achieve his own destiny. Look at them. What are they doing with their sacred right? Creating havoc. Havoc, Stanley. You think I've got the answer and I don't know a goddam thing.”

There was a sudden lull in the festive din and Stuart talked in a loud voice into silence. People exchanged amused glances and began to listen. Helene heard him and started toward him.

“I can't see you have much to complain about,” Hilliard said as music filled the void again.

“Hollywood's dulled the old perceptions, my boy. You just see pictures. Lovely wife. Why, here's the lady in person. Fine, upstanding son. Beautiful place. Seems to me you used to be more acute in the old days. There's all the material here for an ugly little story and you miss it all.”

“You're drunk,” Helene said calmly. “Why don't we go before you make a spectacle of yourself.”

“All part of the entertainment, my dear. Little lecture on truth. Having a good time, Carl? You don't realize what a good friend I am to you. She wanted me to forbid you the house. Said you were a Nazi spy or something, but I stuck up for you.”

“That's enough, Stuart,” Helene said tensely, keeping her voice low. “Stop this or go.”

“No, no, nothing like telling the truth to liven up a party. I'm the leaven in the dough. I was just explaining to Stanley here that our beautiful façade conceals all the rubble of three wasted and ruined lives. He's going to put it in a film.”

Helene's eyes widened for a moment as she caught a glimpse of the horror of Stuart's total indifference. This was the final betrayal. This was a repudiation of all that she had clung to. She turned from him abruptly. “Take me away from here,” she murmured as she swept past Carl.

Stuart watched her retreating back. He wanted to run after her. He wanted to call out to her. He didn't see Carl walking at her side. For a ghastly moment, he felt as if something irreparable had broken in him. His glass slipped from his hand and rolled in the grass. Hilliard picked it up.

“You might as well have another drink,” he said.

Stuart continued to stare after her. Perfect freedom. She was free to go. He was free to stay. Robbie was free to roll around on the beach with his boyfriend. Why not? As he stared at the spot where she had disappeared into the house, he felt a great emptiness opening up within him. It was all emptiness—all of life was emptiness. He felt a sort of cataclysmic relief at knowing that there was nothing to hope for, and out of the night's immensity a breath of knowledge touched him: without bonds, there is no freedom.… He heard a girl's voice at his side.

“I'm not used to being out without the children,” it said.

He turned and found Anne looking up at him through her lank hair. “I didn't know you were here,” he said.

“A gentleman insisted. I've decided to find out what the grown-ups are like. I've decided to start with you.”

Stuart looked at her dimly for a moment. “I think you've made a poor choice,” he said, taking the replenished glass Hilliard held out to him.

Helene sat huddled well over on her side of the seat, unable to look at the man who was driving. Now that there seemed to be no hope of postponing the inevitable, she felt doomed. Stuart had condemned her with his eyes, had almost willed her to give herself to Carl. Their ruined lives. Was he punishing her for all the years she had sublimated her passion for him in her devotion to Robbie? She had a sudden sense of having been manipulated by him always, as if their life together had been a sort of play, conceived, written, and directed by him; he probably already knew how the last act ended.

“He may be following us,” she said dully.

“It is unlikely. How can he drive? The Cumberleighs will take care of him. Everybody saw how drunk he was getting. Dolly Parkinson spoke to Jane about possibly spending the night.”

“How could he behave so disgracefully? Doesn't he see what he's doing?”

“You mustn't judge him harshly. Something is seriously wrong. I saw it as soon as he arrived this afternoon. He wasn't drinking in his usual way, quietly and steadily. He seemed driven, almost obsessed by something. I can't help wondering if it has something to do with Robbie and Toni.”

“You think he's guessed?”

“What else could it be? He was all right when he went back for the bag. They have been behaving very openly with each other recently. If it must all come out, I will do my best to make it easy for the boy.”

Helene was touched and warmed by the tenderness in his voice when he spoke of Robbie. Driving over with him this afternoon had given her a taste of what it would be like to be really with him. He had been full of hearty high spirits, charmingly attentive to her but without the insistent undercurrent of sexuality that had so unnerved her. He had made her feel young and desirable and aware of the possibility of an easy relaxed physical rapport of a sort she had never known, as if, as he said, they were meant for each other. Stuart's forcing the issue had plunged her once more into conflict. She instinctively resisted the inevitable where passion was concerned. Just because they were going back to the house alone together didn't mean that she was going to give herself to him. “I won't allow him to hurt Robbie,” she said, clinging to what she knew and trusted. “Stuart's never understood him. He's an artist. He's always responded to beauty. Whatever he might feel for a man, it would always be more spiritual than grossly sexual. Stuart wouldn't understand that.”

“We shall see. Everything is coming to a head. I've been preparing for it. We must think of ourselves now. And Robbie too, of course. I will take care of you both.”

“I don't understand any of this,” she protested, lifting her head and allowing herself to ease in closer to him.

“Must we both understand? You have lived too cautiously and emptied your life of everything but your growing passion for Robbie. When I have rid you of that, I will open your eyes once more to all that you have missed. You see, I do not say I will make you happy. Happiness you must find for yourself.”

“I
am
happy. Nobody can take that away from me, not even Stuart.”

“Not even somebody who might take Robbie from you? Oh my dear, don't you see the appalling danger that's facing you? I will save you from it.”

“Please, Carl, you confuse me so.” Passion? Danger? Why did he go on insisting on it?

“Only for a little longer,” he assured her. “We're almost there.” He dropped a hand from the wheel and held hers. “There. Put your head on my shoulder. We will be like little children, leaning against each other to keep the darkness at bay.”

She did as he suggested and felt his powerful body moving against her as he guided the car. She no longer felt threatened by him, no longer felt compelled to resist him. He had the confident strength of knowing what he wanted and would show her what she wanted. She had followed Stuart long enough in his pursuit of some truth that always eluded him. He would allow nothing to be simple, nothing easy. She had found no dark corners in Carl, no hidden depths, only his direct masculine drive for possession of her. If it was inevitable, it had the simple inevitability of human appetite.

“Are we to be in love with each other?” she asked quietly, testing him.

“Oh my dear, I don't know what that is. I'm a man. You are a beautiful desirable woman. That is enough. The rest is words.”

“Yes, perhaps so.” So many words. Stuart had been dinning words at her since the beginning of time. She didn't want to hear any more. If he could publicly proclaim the ruin of their lives, she could act. She lifted her head and looked down the path of light projected by the headlights, realizing that she didn't care if he knew that she was being unfaithful to him. Let Carl handle it in any way he chose.

When they drew to a halt in front of the house, there were no other cars in the drive. “The boys aren't home yet,” she said.

“It is still quite early.” He reached across to open her door for her. “The night is filled with parties and we are alone.”

“Yes.” Her heart accelerated as she felt his breath against her cheek, his arms brushing against her, the fresh clean smell of him filling her nostrils. Was he going to kiss her at last? He drew back and let himself out and came around to her side to accompany her into the house. He stopped when they reached the cloistered court of the guest wing and turned to her and drew her into his arms, a big man capable of making her feel almost frail. His mouth on hers was demanding and possessive. He had held Robbie like this. He knew the feel of Robbie's beautiful body against his. She was holding her son's lover. He released her with a flash of his big white teeth.

“Go and get ready for bed,” he commanded. “I'll wait for you here.”

She moved in a trance to obey him, unable to grasp the reality of what she was doing. In an hour, her body would have been joined to Carl's, a life would have ended and another born. Or would it be simply a sexual act leading to nothing? If so, she would have lost everything. Except Robbie. They would have shared a man; her soul trembled at the thought. She undressed and washed and scented herself and combed her hair. She felt quite detached from her surroundings but moved with precision. She put on a dressing gown and was ready. For what? She still couldn't convince herself that she was doing something so commonplace as going to bed with a man. Her sense of her own inviolability was offended.

Her heart began to race again when she knocked on his door. He opened it and stood before her casually, unselfconsciously naked. Reality engulfed her with a giddy rush of sensual impressions. In the soft artificial light, his powerful bronzed body looked startlingly young. Desire clawed at the pit of her stomach. He reached out and opened her dressing gown and she saw his sex lengthen and lift into a prodigy of virility. Her breath caught. Surely Robbie would be shocked by such a display of raw lust. His fingers moved lightly on her.

“Your breasts are like a young girl's. How lovely.” His smile didn't gloat at his triumph over her but made it a shared triumph. “I have never before waited so long for a woman. It makes it more thrilling than it has ever been.”

She abandoned herself to his skilled worship of her body, wondering if he brought such ardor to his lovemaking with a boy. Had he and Robbie aroused each other to such a pitch of erotic tension? An image of Robbie's body writhing ecstatically under him, like hers, kept interposing itself between them. She uttered a cry to banish it as he finally made his enormous entry into her.…

Habit woke Robbie at the usual hour, but he remembered how late they'd been up and slid in closer to Toni and held his erection and waited to drift back to sleep. He could miss a morning's work. He wanted to prolong the feeling he had had all night of having been totally absorbed into Toni's life. Going to the party practically as Toni's date had been only the beginning of the evening's wonders. Their special relationship had been acknowledged in the way Toni's friends had welcomed him. Toni had flirted with several girls without making him feel excluded. The night had ended with their taking one of the most attractive girls out to a deserted beach where they had all stripped and swum naked together. He and Toni had fooled around in their usual way and Toni had encouraged the amorous play that Robbie habitually tried to keep in check. It seemed to drive the girl wild with desire. She joined in. Robbie hadn't dreamed that girls could be so uninhibited in their enjoyment of boys' bodies. She had teased his cock until he had almost felt as if he wanted her. Before he knew it was going to happen, she had maneuvered his entry into her and he immediately felt shamefully imprisoned in her mysterious interior. His body felt defiled as it never had before. He could find nothing in his nature to prompt him to satisfy her desires and his orgasm was a physiological function, without pleasure. Afterward, the vicarious thrill of watching Toni's practiced possession of the girl had been one of the memorable moments of his life.